Mist's Adventure in Worm
by Mist of Rainbows
Summary: A self insert based on an overpowered Worm (Superheroes) challenge.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own the Worm Serial. I blame Godogma for a decent part of it as he wrote most (nearly all) of Charles' lines. I know it's been a long time since I've updated anything on this site. I could state reasons and such but mostly I was posting on other sites. This is a result of seeing the Worms CYYA images... that said it's not a choose your own adventure fic.

Mist grumbled as he sat down at his computer after an annoying half day at work and checked his email. "Stupid idiots." He scowled as he noticed an unfamiliar email had gotten through his spam filter. "Must be a review or something." He opened the email and looked it over. "Worm CYOA? That's weird. At least it's not Crazypants with more stupid suggestions."

He muttered as he looked the page over of powers and challenge requirements, 'Okay, that's campy as hell but I was going to write a self insert at some point anyways. Maybe this will be a good source of ideas.' He opened a notebook file and looked over the email. 'Let's see… Worldbreaker looks amusing but yeah no, I'd get hit with newspapers for that crap. Easy looks amusing but I'd get laughed at… Standard still offers me 6 points to play with and trouble only really comes looking based on what I do. Powers are 2 points each and I really only need to keep my character alive which is covered by taking the Alexandria package and oh… I'm so getting hit with a newspaper for this but Power Manipulation means never having to say you're sorry.'

He smiled as he looked over the powers, 'I don't need to have a damned psychic hack for a character, I don't need to be Eidolon, I mean seriously having powers on demand takes the fun out of things…' He blinked as he saw the Shaper Power which was an upgraded version of Panacea and Nilbog smashed together in some unholy combination of broken. 'Totally broken… screw it, if I'm going to write a fix it Worm story then I might as well give the character the ability to fix things and not get ganked by shit.' He flipped over to the perks section, "One point each…" He smiled as he looked over the Blank perk that made him immune to scrying and precogs. 'That should stop Contessa and Cauldron from screwing with me.' He wrote that perk down then added the Invictus perk that should keep him from being mind controlled.'

Mist coughed as he read the description on Shattered Limiter and realized that it would give him 10 charges a day for his power boosting power rather than the 5 charges it normally granted. Even ignoring the fact that it shortened the growth time of powers from a year to six months it was still broken as hell. "That's way too useful not to take even if it's stupid broken."

Mist laughed as he looked at the flaws section. 'Slaughterhouse 9 is calling… it's 4 points and my character would be hunting them down anyways… screw it.' He wrote the flaw down then looked over the rest. 'Marked, the gangs hate you… hell they're going to hate my character within a couple of days anyways, I might as well get points for it.' He wrote down, E88, ABB and Merchants for the groups that hated him. 'Never had any use for Nazi trash or Asians that couldn't speak English anyways and drug dealers annoy me.'

He looked at the starting options again, 'Being a monster that only comes out every couple of months doesn't sound fun, reincarnated as someone else doesn't sound all that amusing which means I'll just go with a self insert. If I'm doing that then I should grab a secret lair to get past the part where my SI is basically broke.' He looked over some of the other flaws before deciding that there wasn't anything he really wanted as he still had three points. He looked at the powers page again and picked Psychokinetic as his last power. 'That gives me one more point… none of the rest of the perks are even close to things I'm good at. I mean I could change that but then what's the point of writing an SI.'

He looked over the list of companions the email offered, the Tinker looked amusing but not enough to worry about. 'One point for a friend that has one third as many points as I do, that actually sounds workable. I can always fill out the details later.'

Name: Mist Shadows

Start: Self Insert

Difficulty: Standard

Powers: Alexandria Package, Shaper, Power Manipulator, Psychokinetic

Perks: Blank, Secret Lair, Shattered Limiter, Invictus, Friend

Flaws: Slaughter House is calling, Marked: Merchants, ABB, EBB

Mist looked over his reply then sent it off. He frowned as the power went off and his computer turned off plunging his room into darkness. "Shit." He frowned as he realized that there should still be light coming through the two windows, "What the hell?"

A vaguely familiar sleepy voice called out, "Keep it down." from across the room.

Mist jumped and banged his head on the ceiling then fell back to the ground. "That hurt…" he trailed off as he realized that it really hadn't hurt. He pulled his attention back to the fact that there was someone else in his house. "Who are you?"

The girl yawned as she woke the rest of the way up, "How long was I asleep for?"

Mist's brain kicked into gear as he recognized the voice, "Selena?"

"Yeah? Where is everyone?"

Mist blinked as a ball of light appeared over his hand which illuminated the strange and unfamiliar room and the girl on the bed. The ball of light flickered out and died as Mist realized that he had just conjured a ball of light. "Shit…"

"I must still be asleep…"

"I must have hit my head because none of this is making sense…" Mist glanced around the dark room, trying and failing to make any details out.

"Is the game over?"

"Yeah, it was over last night, you crashed out on the couch." Mist frowned slightly as the details of the game escaped him before shaking it off. He blamed the alcohol that Selena had talked him into drinking, never mind the fact that he had work in the morning or that she wasn't twenty one yet. He rubbed the bridge of his nose, "Never drinking again…"

Selena laughed, "You're the one that wanted me to flash you."

"I'm pretty sure I was talking about your character…"

"Details. Can you get the lights?" She blinked as the room's lights turned on. "What the hell?" She looked around in confusion as she realized that they were in a brown tiled room with a metal door, a couch that had seen better days, a rather solid looking desk and an old chair that her friend was sitting in. "If Craig drugged my soda, I'm killing him."

Mist stared at the large titled underground chamber. "One minute I'm sitting down at my computer and the next I'm here…" He trailed off as knowledge of his powers flowed into his head. "Crap…"

"Crap?"

Mist held out his hand and conjured another ball of light. "Yeah… either we're going insane, space aliens kidnapped us, or we somehow got given powers and probably transported to a world that's going to be destroyed in a couple of years."

Selena stared at the glowing ball of light, "Holy shit!"

"Yeah…"

"Wait, what do you mean we might have been transported to a world that's going to end in a couple of years?"

Mist sighed, "Well… I was answering my email and I found a Worm self insert challenge…"

Selena snorted, "Like that could actually happen…" she trailed off as she looked at the glowing ball of light floating over her friend's hand. "Okay… please tell me that you have some type of holographic projector or something…"

"Wish I could, that would be neat." He gestured around the room, "I wish I could tell you that I know someone with a room like this but you know I don't."

"Well technically I don't because you have some college friends that you never mention."

"Most of which I haven't seen in a couple of years."

Selena winced slightly as she pinched herself, "Apparently I'm not asleep…"

Mist glanced over the furniture then over at Selena who was wearing tight black shorts and a green silk shirt which did very little to conceal her figure. He pulled his gaze off his friend's chest and looked down at his dark jeans, his boots and his favorite long-sleeved shirt with a fairy queen on it. 'At least I'm wearing my clothes.' He sighed, "Yeah… we should probably explore."

"Do you have any idea what's actually down here?"

Mist shrugged, "Nope, that's why I want to look around. It's probably safe, I spent points on a secret lair."

"Right because the world is just going to give you a secret lair."

"I got powers didn't I?"

"That's totally not fair by the way."

Mist looked toward the door, "I'm still half expecting this to be some weird dream or trick."

"In that case, let's find some weapons."

"You're rather violent today."

"I got kidnapped and left in a dark room, if this is some sort of joke I'm going to hurt you."

Mist let the ball of light vanish then held up his hands, "Don't look at me."

"Let's just do this before I change my mind." Selena scowled as they headed to the next room..

In the next room laying on a broken down couch with his head leaning back over the side was a too tall for the couch Nordic featured guy with a long beard and a ponytail in a Metallica shirt and black pants.

Selena turned and raised an eyebrow at Mist. "Who the hell is that?"

"Oh, I am so grabbing a newspaper…" came a growl from the guy on the couch after he opened one bleary eye and saw the two people staring down at him. "And what's up with the couch in the dark anyway?"

"Lights?" Mist grinned when the lights came on revealing a large tiled room with several other doors and a set of elevator doors in the far wall.

"Oh you bastard…" the guy groaned… "Newspaper, your nose buddy… just you wait."

"Ah, right… I probably deserve that but…" He grinned as he conjured a ball of fire over his hand, "I'm just not seeing it work out well for you."

"I can find you when you sleep."

"Is someone going to answer me damn it?!" Selena growled.

"Ah right, that's Charles." Mist gestured to Selena, "Charles, Selena."

Charles rolled off the couch and stretched hard, causing nearly every vertebra in his back to pop. "Oh thank god… Pleasure to meet you Selena - hit him with a newspaper; I know somehow that this is all his fault."

"Oh please, like anyone really expects to reply to an email and get dragged off to some gods forsaken world."

"If I am stranded on Earth Bet you are so getting it." Charles glared over at Mist.

"Ah, well… in that case, I should probably let you get back to sleep while I scout to make sure that we're not there…" Mist trailed off with a lack of conviction.

Charles sighed, slapping his hand over his eyes and running it down his face. "Selena, this bastard got us trapped on Worm didn't he?"

"No clue, I was at a Dungeons and Dragons game, I took a nap and I woke up in the other room."

"I had just eaten supper … I took a nap and woke up here, but blaming him seems like the best bet. We were napping; this has to be his fault." Charles replied.

Mist grumbled, "Sure, blame the guy with fantastic magical powers. Okay, I can see the logic there."

Selena asked, "Fantastic magical powers?"

"I'm hoping to hell I don't have a parasitic alien creature connected to my head, that and the email said that I would get powers that weren't shards…"

"If I didn't at least get powers I think I'm going to … it won't be pleasant and I'll let your imagination fill in what I'm gonna do to you." Charles drawled as he kept stretching, trying to get the kinks out from the horrible couch he'd been sleeping on.

Mist shrugged, "I'm less worried about that and more worried about the fact that I might have accidentally caused a group of mass murdering psychopaths fixate on us."

Selena gulped, "You what?!"

"The Slaughterhouse 9? Really?! For fuck's sake…" Charles growled. "I suppose that we at least know how to get rid of lots of the 'untouchable' ones."

"It was worth 4 points, I mean two powers and fuck I didn't think I'd actually have to deal with them. I mean it was supposed to just be a joke email."

"He taunts Murphy a lot in real life too doesn't he?" Charles asked Selena with a raised eyebrow.

Selena glared at Mist. "Yes, yes he does."

"Just be happy I didn't take the Skitter version of this challenge."

Selena asked, "What the hell is the Skitter version?"

Mist muttered, "No points and the Universe hates you."

"Aka I'd have squished him when we got here." Charles rubbed the bridge of his nose.

Mist tried not to smirk as he asked, "Most likely… so who wants superpowers?"

"Me!" Charles replied and grabbed Selena's hand, raising her arm up in the air, so both of them were waving their arms around.

Selena asked, "What's the failure chance? Is it like Myrr?"

"This world sucks balls, it doesn't matter what the failure chance is. People with no powers go splat ALL the time. It's like Murphy has a hard on for them even more than anyone else." Charles replied.

Mist shook his head, "Worse, Myrr has safe places and generally no Endbringers."

Selena sighed, "Those are like Godzilla right?"

"More or less yeah."

"Endbringers are worse than Gojira… At least the giant nuclear lizard fights off other monsters and saves Japan occasionally. Endbringers just fuck shit up." Charles muttered.

"Okay, powers sound like a good idea…"

Mist asked, "If I'm understanding my power correctly I've got 10 upgrade orbs a day that I can use to upgrade powers. I can also steal powers from parahumans and transfer them to other people."

"Okay, Eidolon doesn't need his." Charles replied firmly. "Not sure but I don't think the shadow chick needs hers either."

"I'd have to agree with that, if I get the chance. I'd rather not have more of the Endbringers around."

Selena asked, "What can you give me?"

"Hell if know, pretty much anything in the 4 to 5 range and probably higher if I use more upgrade orbs."

Selena looked over at Charles, "Does that help you? Because it doesn't help me."

Charles chuckled darkly. "It would if I had my laptop; I helped the Boy Wonder over there write a Worm fanfic and made a database of all the powers and who had them… But not really, no."

Mist looked at Selena, "Fuck you." He glared at Charles, "Fuck yourself."

"What's with all the hostility? It's not like I paid a hell of a lot of attention to all the Worm crap, I learned it via osmosis and to help you write. Eidolon is a dickhead, Alexandria is too… Coil is bad… Skitter is an abused girl who needs help… The Wards get fucked over… Armsmaster is a dick with ears… Need I go on?" Charles asked.

"No, it's all good. Hmm, I think some type of durability or regeneration."

Selena raised her hand, "I vote both."

"See, she's got the idea already." Charles grinned. "I vote Czarnian. Well Czarnian minus the whole Gene Simmons from KISS look."

"I might be able to do that. Powers?"

"Durability, super strength, regeneration, speed … you know the basic four color supers' game powers is a good place to start; since we're stuck in Worm, tinker abilities are also a must." Charles chuckled.

Selena giggled, "I think I've already got some of those, either that or the diagrams bouncing around in my head are just weird artistic pictures."

"In theory my friends were supposed to get powers so it's possible that you got the tinker power."

"Nifty!" Selena giggled.

"That and I can sense your powers…" Mist trailed off as he actually focused on Charles and checked his power. "Fucking hacker!"

"Huh?" Charles asked with a raised eyebrow as he felt around in his pockets.

"You're like a ramped up version of Eidolon, it's freaking insane."

"WHAT?! How am I a souped up version of Eidolon?"

"Hell if I know, but yeah… 10 bloody powers at once, I mean what the fuck man? I'm supposed to be the fucking hero here." Mist glared at Charles.

Charles hit the ground, rolling around laughing. "Eidolon gets to pick his powers right?"

"Not sure but you do and it's even worse than that you shithead. Your power will fucking pick useful powers as well."

Charles grinned and continued laughing, stopping to pant for air leaning against Selena's legs and gasping as he continued chortling. "The look on your face…."

Selena tried to control her snickering, "What about me?"

"Overpowered Tinker." Mist forced himself to smile or at least grimace.

Charles reached over and patted Mist's knee consolingly. "Look at it this way, at least we don't have to worry about heavy hitters I can cover that…And hopefully keep your megalomania from getting out of hand."

Selena shook her head, "Good luck with that, you should see him DM."

"I know, I've heard…"

Mist frowned as he considered explaining that he didn't actually have megalomania then decided that it wasn't worth it, "In that case, you've got 10 powers to cover lots and lots of crap so durability first." He held out his hand and conjured a sparkling ball of plasma looking material.

Charles forced himself visibly to sober up and quit laughing, surviving this place took precedence over laughing at Mist. "How do we want to handle this? Reinforce existing powers first or are you going to handle doing durability and the standards first and then I try to fill the slots?"

"I've got 10 a day. I might as well try to shore up some basic problems, durability should get two hits each and flight should get at least one if that works."

Selena shook her head, "Go with telekinesis, that way we can fly and do other things with only one power."

"Good point."

"I'll try and track down Panacea and grab healing abilities. Unlike Eidolon I know just how useful healing is and I'm not a dumbass who wants major challenges for himself." Charles shrugged. "Making the Endbringers because he's a psychotic numbskull…" he trailed off muttering darkly under his breath.

"I passed up on that flaw as well."

Selena glared at Mist, "I would have kicked you." She frowned, "Wait a minute what flaws did you take?"

Mist muttered, "Shit…"

"Knowing him; Enemies out the wazoo…" Charles replied for him.

Mist sighed, "It's not like we weren't going to make them anyways."

"Empire 88?" Charles asked with a raised eyebrow.

"And the Merchants and the ABB. I would have taken other ones but it only let me take 3 points of them."

"Right." Charles shrugged. "I have no problems going after slavers and neo-Nazis… The Asians are douche bags too…"

"I sort of want to steal that adepts power and give Skitter flaming indestructible insects because I think it would be funny."

Selena rolled her eyes, "That brings up another point, are we going to be heroes, rogues or villains?"

"Well, I'm not letting Mist be a villain." Charles replied.

"Probably for the best." Selena smiled.

Mist sighed. "We can rob the villains if we're rogues, yes?"

Selena said, "Only if we can't find the actual owners of the stuff."

"Robbing the bad guys is a traditional way for D&amp;D players to operate; we're all D&amp;D players here." Charles replied.

"Oh good, because I'm fairly sure I only have a hundred dollars to my name." Mist checked his pocket and pulled out a hundred, "Yep."

Charles reached into his pockets and came up with a rumpled 20 dollar bill. "You've got me beat, and I don't even have a pack of smokes or any cigars to my name. Good time to quit I guess."

Selena checked her pocket and pulled out a twenty, a ten, three ones and a handful of change, "Thirty three dollars and thirty three cents. Great, is it sad that I actually have more money than I started with?"

"Someone thinks they're funny I guess." Charles snorted.

Mist tossed the glowing power sphere at Charles. "Yep."

Charles yelped and tried to catch the ball of whatever it was, making sure his hands were in front of his face. "Hey! I don't want my hair on fire!"

The sphere of power sank into Charles and flowed through him, as it granted him increased durability. "Thankfully that didn't set my face on fire…" he trailed off.

Mist grinned, "Let's see…" He conjured another orb and tossed it at Charles. "That should boost you to a six or a seven durability. Which means that you can probably shrug off most arms fire without using one of your slots. Do you want to try telekinesis next?"

"Sure, why not? Then you can buff Selena."

"No problem, I was just making sure it worked first. I mean a pretty lady is a terrible thing to waste." Mist conjured a slightly different colored orb and tossed it to Charles.

"Quite… There are so few sets of perfect breasts in the world, it would be a shame to waste hers." Charles replied, chuckling.

Selena smirked, "That reminds me, we're going to need costumes and more clothes at some point."

Mist conjured a durability orb and tossed it at Selena. "Here."

Selena caught the orb and it vanished into her skin empowering her. "Thanks."

Mist conjured another durability orb and tossed it. "Before we give you telekinesis we should make sure Charles' ability works."

"Sure…" Charles drawled out. "Throw me under the bus…" he chuckled and tried picking himself up with his telekinesis so that he could fly. Amusingly enough he didn't bounce off the ceiling or blast off to the side or play ping pong with the walls.

Selena said, "Sweet, now we just need invisibility and some type of ranged attack."

Mist shrugged, "Or we keep four slots open for other people. There is always tomorrow."

"We don't even know when we are so some of the people you might want to buff might not even be an option for a while." Charles replied.

"It's probably April 8th, 2011 which means that Skitter has a couple of days before her solo debut."

"She's already been traumatized then?" Charles grumbled.

"Probably..."

"Well, fuck…" Charles muttered, running his fingers through his beard.

Selena frowned, "How do we fix that?"

Mist jokingly asked, "Burn the school down?"

"Well, do Panacea's healing powers work on mental trauma if she would actually use them on people's heads?" Charles asked with a raised eyebrow.

Mist shrugged, "She twisted Glory Girl into loving her, I'd rather avoid warping Skitter's mind that much. I know she can fix damage or at least she could if she hadn't been raised by a bitch from hell."

"Didn't Glory Girl's powers twisted Panacea into loving her first?" Charles asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Probably, that's one of those things that's never actually clarified, but most likely."

Charles ran his fingers through his own hair, tugging the hair tie out that kept it in a ponytail. "... Fuck… I need to find a telepath and a healer… or somehow make my own power set with those in. Otherwise Taylor's a mind-job…"

"Selena, do you want to be a telepath? I mean I'm fairly sure I can do that..." He trailed off as he realized what he had just suggested, "Shit, can you forget I mentioned that?"

Selena smirked, "Hell no, I'm willing to go for telepathy as long as it has an off switch."

Mist sighed, "If you don't like it I should be able to deconstruct it."

"Okay, in that case, hell yeah."

"Free warning; guys, even your friends who are guys, pay attention to your body and fantasize. It's guaranteed; so don't get pissed about it." Charles said firmly, "so much for quitting." he muttered.

Selena gestured at her green silk shirt that clung to her body, "No worries."

Mist muttered, "I'm going to regret this." He conjured a glowing ball of light and hit Selena with it.

Selena blinked a couple of times, "Voices… lots of voices. Make them stop!" She smirked, "Nah, we're good."

Mist twitched then mock scowled at Selena, "You're evil."

"Yep." Selena stuck her tongue out at Mist.

"She's a girl, of course she's evil." Charles deadpanned, still working his fingers through his hair. "Heh, gonna have to cut my beard at least. I don't think a ZZ-Top beard will work very well for keeping a secret identity."

Mist shook his head, "Probably not, masks only cover so much. Speaking of masks, should we try the elevator or look for stairs?""

"Mmm… try the stairs first, no cover in an elevator and most of them only have one speed... Besides Murphy may have built them." Charles replied with a grin.

Thankfully it didn't take the group long to find a door that led to a secluded part of the basement of a hotel. Even more fortunate or suspicious depending on your point of view was the set of keys they found in the door that led up to said basement.

"Ominous, most ominous." Charles muttered with a Bill and Ted voice.

Thankfully the hotel seemed to be in a semi reasonable part of town so it wasn't a problem to get out to the street. Sadly for Charles' peace of mind he noticed a Brockton Bay newspaper sitting on an end table.

Charles grumbled… "Brockton Bay… which we already figured…" He snatched it up and examined the news stories.

The news is mostly fluff pieces that try to paint a decent light so they can attract tourists. They're obviously stretching the truth. "Yeah, I'm finding Panacea and getting her powers and going back to smoking… I wonder if I can find Cuban cigars in this town?" Charles muttered as he shook his head.

Mist shrugged, "Probably not, I mean it's supposed to be a grim-dark world after all."

"Then I'll fly to Cuba." Charles muttered. "Then again you're enemies with the Merchants I bet they have some I can steal."

Mist laughed, "Let's find out."

Selena snorted as they walked out of range of a street light, "After we find masks and costumes."

Mist looked at Charles, "Do you have a power for making costumes? I mean I know that we're eventually going to have the tinker make our costumes but until then."

Charles frowned thoughtfully and tried to call up hard light to surround each of them and change their features as well as form a costume for them. He based his on Thor from the Avenger's movie, minus the hammer instead including a bastard sword sheathed over his back.

For Mist he focused and pulled up an image of Beastboy from the Teen Titans.

Turning to Selena he focused and made it look like she was a anthropomorphic cheetah, though he made sure the salient points were covered in fur and didn't show off anything. "Hopefully the hard light stuff will give some extra durability as well." Charles muttered.

Selena laughed as she looked at Mist, "So you turned him green? That works."

Mist snickered, "He turned you into a catgirl."

Selena shrugged, "It's not like it's permanent, right?"

"As far as I know it's not." Charles replied.

Mist muttered as they walked past an alleyway, "Great, okay let's skip the store and hit the Merchants."

A rather pale skinned skinny drugged out looking man leaning against the wall of the alley pointed a gun at Mist with a shaky hand. "Give me your money."

Charles shook his head and chuckled, "Not real smart is he?"

Mist turned and looked at the drug using scumbag, "Yeah, not so much… I mean it's not even close to Halloween."

Selena muttered, "This is what people mean when they say someone wins a Darwin award isn't it?"

"Yup…" Charles chuckled and reached over his back to haul the hard light bastard sword out of its sheath.

The gunman shot Mist.

Mist grumbled as the bullet bounced off his chest, "You were bitching and I got shot, fucking unreasonable flaws."

"That bullet didn't even get past your shirt…" Charles snorted and slapped the gunman upside the head firmly with the flat of the sword.

The man staggered and tried to swap targets to point at Selena or possibly Charles. Either way before he'd managed to actually aim the gun at the lady he found himself gasping for breath with Mist's fist buried in his stomach.

Mist scowled at the Merchant as the man fell to the ground vomiting, "Fucking drug users. You don't point a gun at a lady. I mean seriously, trying to jump capes…"

"He was a candidate for the Darwin awards before he started doing smack is my guess." Charles shrugged and picked up the pistol, examining it curiously before tucking it behind his belt and reaching down to frisk the guy.

Mist gestured and the man's pockets and most of his pants ripped apart leaving the twenty dollars in the guy's pocket mostly untouched. "Let me."

"At least I didn't have to frisk him." Charles shrugged and picked up the money. "We're up one pistol and 20 bucks so far."

"You're welcome to the pistol." Mist sighed, "I should have asked him where the rest of the Merchants are."

"The Tinker can make better ones later I'm sure, but for a backup it works for now." Charles shrugged. "Can you use a pistol Cheetara?" he asked Selena with a grin as he playfully waggled his eyebrows at her.

Selena said, "Better than Mist but that's not saying all that much."

Mist rolled his eyes, "I can hit a target with it at thirty feet."

"I'll hang onto it until I can give you both lessons then." Charles replied.

Mist shrugged, "If it comes down to it I can toss lightning or light people on fire, at least I'm…" He noticed Selena's glare. "I mean I could but that would be wrong."

Charles laughed and grinned at her. "What? These guys have already tried to kill him once."

Selena scowled, "I picked the location of a stash from the idiot's twisted mind." She glared at Mist and Charles, "One of you owes me ice cream by the way." She grumbled and stalked in direction of the docks.

"How about he buys you ice cream and I provide massage services?" Charles chuckled.

"Excellent." She smirked as she put a bounce in her step.

Mist sighed as he followed the cute female telepath. "Any suggestions on how do this?"

Selena asked, "Zip ties?"

"I don't have any."

"Duct tape?" Charles grinned.

Selena smirked. "The corner store should have some."

"Might even have both…" Charles said with a grin, "and the one we don't use to tie people up we'll have for later." he trailed off suggestively with a chuckle.

"That works." Selena replied.

Mist rolled his eyes.


	2. Chapter 2

~Chapter 2

The Merchant hideout was a derelict house that had seen better days. Broken windows, a broken door, moldy wooden boards and a roof that was missing at least a fifth of the shingles. In short it was a place that even most homeless wouldn't have touched with a ten foot pole. Apparently the Merchants had no taste or sense of self preservation as a strong breeze would probably knock the building down.

Mist looked over the Merchant hangout, "We could always just walk up and say that we're heroes and see what happens?"

"Or she could walk up and claim to be selling Girl Scout cookies? Or Girl Scouts…" Charles snorted out a laugh.

Selena laughed, "Sure. Just be ready to jump in when they attack me."

"No problem, if they try to grab you I can remove their hands…" Charles grinned evilly, "mostly at the wrist." he drew the sword from over his shoulder and moved to stand on one side of the door.

Selena grinned as she headed over to the Merchants. Sadly, before she could even start her spiel the Merchants reached to grab her.

Before his grubby mitts reached his target Charles brought the edge of the hard light that made up his sword down across both the guy's forearms.

The man screamed bloody murder as his hands fell toward the ground almost in slow motion and fell back into the house which seemed to suddenly swarm with deadbeat mostly useless drug dealers with guns.

Selena jumped back and flew into the air trying to get away from the swarm of Merchants.

Mist stepped forward and started gently or not so gently punching people in the head. "I'm enjoying this way more than I should."

Selena tried to shout over the gunfire, "What! I can't hear you."

Mist grabbed the last Merchant standing with one hand and tapped him in the temple hard enough to drop him to the ground with the other. "That was actually sort of fun. We should probably heal or cauterize the man's stumps before we call it in..." He walked forward and touched the man with the stumps and caused them to heal over. "Oops."

Charles raised an eyebrow, "Huh… I thought I was going to have to find Panacea?"

"She's on our list of people to visit. I mean giving her some durability would be a good thing."

"But you have healing abilities?" Charles asked with an arch look.

"Right, let's just go with that." He floated into the building and looked around. "I need some Tinker built X-ray vision glasses."

Selena snorted as she floated back to the ground, "Damn it, I actually have an idea how to make those now."

Mist walked back out of the house a short time later with two gym bags, one filled with cash and the other with guns and knives. "If I hadn't duct taped people to the walls I'd have lit it on fire." Mist smirked as he used one of the Merchant's cellphones to call the police.

Operator said, "You've dialed 911, how can I help you?"

Mist said in an atrocious southern accent, "I'd like to report some Darwin award winners, a group of Merchants jumped a couple of Capes and lost. There is a whole house filled with drugs that you might want to get off the street." He gave them the location then ended the call and dropped the phone on one of the unconscious Merchants.

Selena raised an eyebrow, "Never again, never again."

"What? That went perfectly."

"I was talking about the damn accent." Selena replied.

Charles nodded. "Horrible, simply horrible."

Mist laughed, "Details. You can call the cops next time."

"Sure." Selena glanced at the bag of money, "How much did you get?"

"6321 dollars and another 300 off the idiots." He handed the bag of guns to Charles. "Here."

Selena grinned, "In that case, let's get something to eat."

"And I think I want a smoke… and I don't trust these goons to have anything useful." Charles replied as he slung the bag of guns over his shoulder.

Selena snickered, "A looting we will go, a looting we will go."

Mist briefly wondered if it was too much to ask for sane help then decided that it wouldn't be nearly as much fun.

~#~Scene Break~#~

Mist waited until the waitress walked around the corner before he asked, "My power manipulation ability would be a lot more broken if I could use it on myself, I guess you can't believe everything you read."

Selena cut her waffles with her knife, "Like you need any more broken powers."

Charles chuckled around his bacon cheeseburger, "I could copy it or something and use it on you…"

"Actually you can't, or at least I don't think you can…I took a perk to make sure that didn't happen."

Selena snickered, "No Pun Pun for you."

"Guess he'll just have to be satisfied being as broken as he is." Charles grinned.

"Speaking of broken, did you want Tinker abilities? I've got another 3 abilities to hand out tonight." Mist asked Charles.

"Sure, why not? Tinkering seems fun as hell but you probably shouldn't hand out powers in a diner."

"Nah, that would be crazy." Mist worked on eating his waffles with strawberries on them.

Selena whispered, "I'm thinking speed. Our telekinesis covers strength to a fair degree which means that being faster could be useful.

Charles nodded. "Sounds about right. It works for superman."

"I should have figured out a way to get x-ray vision then I could pass as a knockoff version of him."

"Tinker made contacts or something." Charles replied with a grin. "But Selena might have objections to making those or having me make those."

Selena glanced at Mist, "Not happening at least until I make a suit that is immune to it."

Charles chuckled. "So much for feminine solidarity, she just doesn't want us perving on her." he said as he nudged her shoulder playfully with his.

Selena snorted, "You went to high school, most of the girls are bitches."

"I suppose… wait, are you suggesting doing so again? I don't think I fit in with high school students anymore." Charles said while looking at her dubiously.

"Hell no, once was more than enough." Selena went back to eating her waffles.

Charles tucked into his burger and fries, nodding firmly at that statement.

Mist said, "Hmm, we should probably look at getting an entertainment system and some basic supplies for the base."

Selena finished the bite she was working on, "And beds. I'd rather not sleep on a couch more than a couple of times in a row, which brings me to the most important question of the night, how long are we stuck here?"

Charles shrugged. "Who the fuck knows? We can just blame Mist."

Mist sighed. "Ah, I didn't actually read that part of the challenge…"

Selena grumbled, "That's like making deals with demons, seriously what the hell?"

"Demons aren't real… okay I'm fairly sure they're not real, okay fine no signing contracts without reading them really carefully."

Charles pointed his steak knife off the table at Mist warningly. "Better not bub. I'm glad I'm free and over 21 so he can't sign contracts for me in any case."

Selena grumbled, "Wait, I'm over eighteen, I mean that counts, right?"

"Yep, in this country you're an adult." Charles replied.

"Good." Selena sighed in relief.

Mist whispered, "We should probably look into finding someone that can make IDs."

Selena asked, "I don't suppose there were any criminal contact perks?"

Mist grumbled, "Yes, I would have taken at least one if I thought I was really going to get stuck here." He looked at Charles, "I don't suppose you know the type of people that we're looking for?"

"Yeah, the disgruntled guy who looks irritable and hates working at the DMV. Kick him about a thousand per ID and that's roughly four months or more of his salary so he can just enter us in the system when he makes our new drivers licenses." Charles replied.

Selena chuckled, "I just realized I'm a telepath, I can probably pick the guy least likely to screw us over. Same thing with the social security office?"

"Sounds about right to me, and you can use the telepath stuff to make sure they don't even realize they did it." Charles grinned.

"Works for me." Mist went back to eating his waffles.

"Where to next? We need some furniture." Selena glanced between Charles and Mist.

Mist finished his bite then said, "Not to sound cheap but the hotel probably has old furniture in the storeroom that we could borrow."

"Because that's not cheap." Selena looked at Charles, "Does that count as being a villain?"

"Nope, it counts as repurposing junk they have in a storeroom that'll probably sit there forever otherwise. Especially in this town." Charles replied, "Unless you'd really rather try to explain bringing new furniture down from the hotel elevator?"

"He makes a valid point. Either that or you could teleport it down there." Selena smirked.

"I don't have a teleportation ability as far as I know of." Charles replied.

"Rats."

Mist finished his waffles then glanced over at the waitress that was coming their way with the check, "We should probably head back then."

~#~Scene Break~#~

Mist looked over the collection of furniture they had managed to liberate from the storage room, "I can't believe what they'll throw out just because it has a couple of stains. Now we just need a couple of things for the kitchen and some tools for the Tinker lab. Oh that reminds me." Mist grinned as he created a Tinker power and hit Charles with it. "Here."

Charles shuddered a bit and chuckled. "That feels weird. I knew how to make some tools like a lathe and a few other things from old Popular Mechanics, but it's all fairly simple stuff. Tinkertech tools are probably better… whoa - I know what Selena was talking about with all the blueprints and stuff now."

"Ah good. That should help keep her out of trouble."

Selena bounced happily as she came out of workshop, "The people that set this up must have had a Tinker, I mean sure it's a couple decades out of date but a lot of the tools are still usable. Where did you put the broken DVD player?"

Mist gestured at the large box of junk electronics that some hotel manager had been storing, "Right next to the twenty five broken coffee makers."

"There are only twenty four coffee makers, I could do something amazing with twenty five."

Mist rubbed his nose in frustration, "Really?"

"Yep, cloning monsters, making jet fuel, I'm assuming we don't want to make a bio weapon or laughing gas so yeah, fun and interesting things."

"Cloning monsters with 25 glorified hot plates?" Charles asked with a raised eyebrow. "No bio-weapons."

"Okay, no bio-weapons." Selena giggled as she headed back to her lab.

Mist sighed, "Great…"

"All your fault."

"How is that… never mind."

"You brought us here."

Mist walked over to the couch and sat down, "Do we have a plan, other than save Taylor from Lung in a couple of days, steal Coil's and Othala's power and beat up some gangs for loot?"

"Eh, I wouldn't mind playing white knight and keeping Bitch and some of the others from going over the deep end." Charles shrugged. "Besides, I like dogs."

"I bet I could fix her power and give her the ability to talk to her dogs. Then again that might just give her more of an excuse to be antisocial. Still, I've got no objection to Bitch. She was actually fairly reasonable given her handicap. Hell most of the Undersiders don't bother me. Thoughts?"

"Yeah, they don't really bother me either." Charles replied with a shrug.

"Noelle should be fixable, steal her power, fix her and then fix her power which means the Travelers become a lot less problematic. I just wish I could remember Coil's actual address or where his lair is."

Charles shrugged and replied with an address from one of the fanfics he'd seen on Space Battles.

"Have I mentioned how much I hate you sometimes? I mean seriously, talk about random. We'll check a map."

"Random crap sticks in my head; this is from a fanfic on Space battles though so it may not be accurate, but you know how crazy they are about Worm… So it's got a high percentage of being right." Charles shrugged and lit up one of the cigars he'd bought at a convenience store.

Mist debated lighting Charles on fire then decided that he was mostly indestructible so it probably didn't matter. He used his psychokinesis to make sure the smoke headed directly towards the vents. "Tonight or tomorrow?"

"Eh, I'd like to have a little better stuff to use on the lair… From what I remember Coil's goons are outfitted with high end gear… So a non-detectable gas to knock them out or laughing gas might be good. Especially if it's odorless, tasteless and mostly invisible so we might get Coil stoned before we take him on. I mean, I doubt the bastard keeps a full spectrum gas mask on hand." Charles said with a shrug.

"I don't think we can actually nail him with the way his powers work but we can certainly screw up his organization. If one of the Coils starts falling over he'd probably notice and sound the alarm."

"Hey, I grabbed some of the drugs the Merchants had and I could make up a full spectrum hallucinogenic and we could pipe it into the base through the air conditioner. Our perks should make sure he can't tell what the hell is causing it and silencers are dead simple to make even without Tinkertech. Get him stoned and hallucinating, he leaves the base and BLAM!"

"Or he cancels that timeline or rather prediction and he was never there which works just fine as far as I'm concerned. His minions have Tinkertech weapons, and I wouldn't mind having his base as secondary base."

Chuckling Charles headed into the lab and worked on making aerosolized LSD with DMSO to make it work through skin contact as well while whistling evilly.

Mist headed over to the game station and started working on an RPG while he waited for the two Tinkers, "Maybe grabbing a power that makes it so I don't have to sleep was a bad thing."

~#~Scene Break~#~

Mist glanced around at the mercenaries that were sprawled out on the ground of Coil's not so secret base. "I was so looking forward to shooting Coil. I wonder how many times he tried to flee?"

"I dunno, but he was stumbling around all fucked up for a while if these guys are anything to go by." Charles chortled as he collected another set of Tinkertech gear off a drooling merc.

"Power detection is broken as hell. Save scumming for the win or loss in his case." Mist reached out and ripped Coil's power out of him but left the shard connected to Coil. Mist rolled the sparkly ball of energy around in his hand before he scowled. "Damn it. I still can't keep the powers which means that I'm going to have to give this one away."

"Drugs for the win. Especially aerosolized drugs that really fuck people up." Charles snorted and continued looting as they went through the lair. "I'd just use it to keep from getting slapped … hey sounds like a good way to work on dates." he chuckled.

Mist laughed, "Yeah, no. I'll see if Selena has a better use for it…" He trailed off as he heard metal ripping in the background. "That sounds suspiciously like a vault door being ripped off its hinges."

"Noelle?" Charles asked as he pulled out a tranquilizer rifle he'd made the night before. "Honestly, I can only hope the tranqs I made work as well as the LSD. Well, either that or she sees us as something cuddly."

A rather hideous monster with a girl imbedded in the top of it charged around the corner, her claws ripping into concrete as she turned the corner. "No! I will not have my best chance ruined."

Mist reached out with his power and ripped the monster's spark out. The creature took another two steps before collapsing.

As Mist ripped the spark out of the monster Charles used his TK to pull Noelle out of the creature and pulled her to him, catching her before she fell to the ground and growled as he worked at separating her from her monstrous half using the power he copied off Mist, also working his way inside her head and fixing the various weird screw-ups that shit had done to her. "Fuck, that weird half formed whatever it was fucked up her brain and her body. Can you fix this with your snatching away and granting powers thing?"

"I can fix her power or at least I think I can." He frowned as he toyed with the monstrous power he had taken from the monstrous part of Noelle. "I think I'm going to need two hands for this though."

"Just stuff the damn things into me and pull them out after you're finished or something." Charles nodded.

He sighed as he tossed Coil's spark to Charles. "Here, hold that." Mist focused on trying to fix the broken mess that was the monstrous power. "Okay, I think I actually got this working, probably. Do you want to test it out for me while I work on Noelle's shard?"

"What does it do?" Charles grumbled and created a sort of internal holding tank for powers inside of him like a rolodex set up to store the various powers his crazy friend might want to stick in him.

"You remember the Hulk right? It allows you to change into a beast form and more importantly it allows you to change back or at least it should." He held out the beast spark.

"If this is something cool like a half dragon or a werewolf I'll keep it, otherwise I'll try and just hold it in a locker or something." Charles replied, "I'm trying to make one anyway, no clue if it's working or not." Charles reached and grabbed the power.

Mist smiled when the spark didn't sink into Charles' skin. "That's something." He reached out and pulled Noelle's power out of her and looked it over, "Broken, broken… huh… okay that might work." He walked over to one of the downed men and pushed the power into him then pulled the power out leaving the shard behind in the mercenary. "That helps." He made a couple adjustments to make sure that anyone that got the power gained control of when they copied people. "I should be able to copy this if I need to." He put the power into Noelle. "There." He looked at Charles, "Do you want to use the beast form or should we give it back to her? The problem is, I'm fairly sure she wouldn't want it."

Charles shrugged, "Can you tweak it to be a half dragon or werewolf looking thing from D&amp;D? I tried to set up one of my powers to make a storage container to hold these weird abilities if it didn't."

"Sure." He held out his hand. "That's not a problem, werewolf is probably easier."

Charles shrugged and used the power then picked up Noelle and carried her with her head against his shoulder as he covered her with hard light to keep her modest. "Heh, I'll test it later."

"The question remains, what exactly do we do with an army of mercenaries. I'd rather not lose the base."

Charles chuckled, "Boost the telepathy I copied from Selena and I'll just rewrite their brains and pull a Fidelius on this fucker."

"It's after midnight so I've got spare orbs." He reached out and used an orb to give Charles telepathy then another two to increase it even further. "If you want I can give you another telekinesis orb as well."

"Sure why not."

Mist handed him another orb. "That should help. You know, I bet that Tattletale's number is on Coil's phone. I'm sure that she would enjoy talking to him now that he doesn't have powers."

"I'd say so."

Mist walked back over to Coil and searched him until he found his phone and looked through the contact information. "I love it when the bad guy is so arrogant that he forgets to password protect his phone." Mist dialed Tattletale's number.

"Not like I couldn't just yank it out of his head if he had password protected it." Charles replied.

Tattle answered her phone on the second ring, "Yes?"

Mist said, "Hey, Tattletale, Coil had a bit of an accident. I was wondering if you wanted to loot his accounts and such before he wakes up from his drug induced slumber?"

"His power, he'll oh… that's not a problem is it?"

"Fucking hell, really? Just get to the base and we'll sort things out." Mist closed the phone and dropped it on the nearest desk.

"It was your idea to call her." Charles chuckled.

"Yeah well, I mean shit, it's a jump from what I said to his power is gone isn't it?" Mist grumbled good naturedly. "Zip ties?"

"Sure, I was saving them to use on Selena but might as well." Charles snorted out a laugh and tossed the bundle of zip ties to Mist.

"You can always get more." Mist chuckled as he started walking around tying people up with zip ties.

"Besides, she might object… you know I'm just flirting right if you actually want to date her or whatever?" Charles asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Good, I don't have to kill you in your sleep, I mean sure no problem." Mist smiled to let Charles know that he was joking.

"Could you kill me in my sleep?" Charles asked with a raised eyebrow.

Mist shrugged, "Probably not."

"You're the power gamer; how did I wind up with the broken power this time around? Eidolon with a shattered limiter? I mean… fuck…" Charles chuckled.

"I suspect my ex and a vengeance demon." Mist shrugged, "Hell if I know, I grabbed the Blank and Shattered Limiter perks as well. Maybe it carried over."

Charles shrugged and sat on a platform of TK energy, holding Noelle and petting her hair as he relaxed there. "Hmm how did I wind up cuddling the traumatized kid anyway?"

"You're nicer? Nah, because I was busy fixing her power? Hell if I know."

"Probably some mix of all three, she doesn't seem to want to let go now that I'm holding her though. Didn't she have some sort of bad power that was based on touching people?" Charles asked to see if he was remembering correctly.

"Yeah, I fixed it so she could control her power. Copying people and making evil clones every time you touch someone, fuck that."

"But it would explain why she's so cuddly if she couldn't control it before and no one wanted to touch her." Charles shrugged.

"Either that or you fixed some of her mental issues. Maybe she'll drop Trickster like a bad habit now that her head is fixed."

"I fixed all the borked stuff she had in her head by removing the trauma and dampening the emotional context… I pulled a Professor X on her." Charles shrugged. "I grabbed telepathy from Selena just to help her if this worked after all."

Mist laughed. "So we're calling you Charles X now?"

"Sure, you can call me Charles Xavier if you want, but I'm not shaving my head. Hell, I'll put it on my new license." Charles shrugged.

"It's amusing. I think I'll go with Mist Shadows."

"And say your parents were hippies?"

"They weren't quite that bad but sure. I might even come up with something that starts with O for my middle name. Mist O Shadows, nah."

"Mist O'Shadows… Sounds like hippies and Irish ones at that… also that your parent's wanted a girl." Charles snorted.

"It works." Mist glanced toward the entrance, "We should probably head out to wait for Tattletale."

"I thought we were waiting for her here? But outside works too… grab my bag of stuff and hand it here." Charles pointed at all the Tinkertech loot he grabbed off the mercs.

Mist gestured and the bag floated over, "Sure, right because you don't have telekinesis."

"I'm sitting on it right now… and my hands are occupied with a lapful of lovely." Charles chuckled and used one arm to grab the bag and sling it over his shoulder and stood up, holding Noelle to his shoulder. "Why do I feel like a dad with an exhausted teen daughter?"

"Because she's probably still broken and she needs the hugs."

"I'm not a dad… and I'm not sure what to do with paternal feelings. I'm used to being a horny somewhat perverted normal guy not a caregiver." Charles muttered.

Mist laughed as he flew toward the secret entrance, "So what do you want to bet that she brings backup?"

"No bet. I don't take sucker bets." Charles replied as he followed.

~#~Scene Break~#~

Mist was pleasantly surprised when Tattletale actually showed up with Grue without any monstrous dogs or people waiting to kill them though he could sense a parahuman a block away which had growth powers which was probably Bitch. It was hard to get an exact read at that distance. "I'd say sorry about your boss but you'd know I was lying."

Tattletale smirked slightly, "How?"

"We drugged his base then set up outside with plans to shoot him if he left the base. He never left or at least if he did he closed that timeline. We gave the drugs a while to work then we moved in and stole his power and a lot of his Tinkertech weapons."

Grue took a step back, "You can steal powers?"

Charles chuckled and kept stroking Noelle's hair, grinning as he stuck an unlit cigar between his teeth.

"Relax, my range is decent. If I wanted your power I'd already have it."

"Then why call us?"

"Because Coil was a problem, you're villains that rob villains and generally don't hurt innocent people. Besides, I figured you'd want a base of operations."

"Oh, I thought we called them so we could invite them back to ours for kinky sex?" Charles asked with a wicked grin.

Mist shook his head, "Tattletale is cute but her power causes her some issues with that… you know I could probably give her an off switch on her power and remove her Thinker headaches…"

Tattletale stared at the strange cape, "You're serious?"

"Sure, I can modify powers. I can also give people powers if I want."

Noelle blinked as she woke up and looked around, "What the hell?"

Charles chuckled, stroking her hair. "Hi there Sleeping Beauty, how're you feeling?"

"Clear headed for the first time in forever…"

"Hungry?" Charles asked with a raised eyebrow as he checked to make sure her eating disorder was fixed.

"I'm not starved… but I could eat. That's…" She trailed off as she actually looked down at herself. "What the hell happened?"

Tattletale's eyes went wide, "Shit, shit…"

"We smacked Coil around like a redheaded stepchild and I fixed you with help from my friend over there." Charles nodded toward Mist.

Mist did a half wave with his hand, "You're welcome."

Tattletale asked, "Are you looking for employees?"

"Sure," Charles chuckled as he massaged Noelle's scalp, "plus I stole Coil's bank card and passwords so I'm thinking lobster … or steak … steak and lobster."

Mist smiled at Tattletale, "How would you like to be an actual telepath?"

"That's impossible… shit, really?" Tattletale asked then smirked.

"He made me into one," Charles shrugged with a grin. "Though my powers were pretty broken to start with."

"How broken?"

Charles shrugged, he wasn't even in his real form so he didn't mind sharing with Tattletale and Grue and probably Bitch. Besides he hoped to hire them anyway. "Think Eidolon with a shattered limiter."

Mist reached out with his psychokinesis and started pulling the tainted air out of the base.

Tattletale stared at the six foot two Viking, "Okay, my power is obviously broken because I'm fairly sure that he's telling the truth."

Grue sighed, "Without Coil, I need a legit job…"

"Shouldn't be a problem, just work for us." Charles shrugged and looked down at Noelle, "want me to keep carrying you or do you want down?"

Noelle said, "I'm okay."

Charles chuckled and kept massaging her scalp and sat down on another TK chair, "You can call Bitch around if you want and we can all discuss things... Though I was serious about the steak and lobster later."

Mist said, "I'm venting the base, I should have everything flushed out of there shortly. Actually, I'd rather not leave a bunch of mercenaries zip tied in our new base."

"We could drop them off with the PRT or call in one of the Wards?" Charles shrugged.

"Only after you wipe the base from their heads."

Grue took a half step back, "You can mind wipe people?"

Mist shrugged, "He can, I can't or at least you really wouldn't want me to."

"I told you, he gave me telepathy… mainly so I could help Noelle here… Coil's a sick fuck by the way." Charles shrugged.

Mist held up his hand and conjured a sparkling orb of power. "If you're interested?"

Tattletale almost shouted, "Yes!"

Charles chuckled, "I can also implant the knowledge Bitch needs to be more human if she wants, I didn't exactly want this power to wipe people's brains. Just to help people. Guess that makes me Professor X."

Grue asked, "Like the Earth Aleph X-men?"

"Yep, just call me Charles Xavier… Or Thor, whichever." Charles chuckled again, playfully tickling Noelle to see how she reacted.

Noelle giggled drowsily before playfully swatting at Charles' hands.

Tattletale smirked, "With better hair."

"Of course, my ponytail is much better than being bald. Of course, my ZZ-Top beard is bitchin' too." Charles chuckled.

"I'll call Bitch." Tattletale whistled twice.

Grue asked, "What do you get out of this?"

"Right now? I'm getting cuddles from a sleepy hot chick... Win in my book." Charles chuckled with a grin.

Mist shrugged, "Mostly we're just trying to stack the deck against the Empire, ABB and the Merchants. The more people that are ripping them off the less money they'll have to cause problems."

"Not to mention the Endbringers." Charles said as he massaged the back of Noelle's neck, still judging her responses to see if his mental mojo had fixed all the issues or if he'd missed some.

"Yeah, well I've got a couple of ideas there."

Grue asked, "You think you can deal with them?"

"I can give people powers, I can copy powers, yeah I'm fairly sure I know of a couple of ways to deal with the Endbringers."

Charles chuckled, "And me? I'm a lover not a fighter but I'm sure I can make a decent showing."

Tattletale smirked, "This from the Viking?"

Charles grinned. "I just play one on Tv."

Mist tossed Tattletale the sphere of energy, "Here."

Tattletale blinked as she caught it and suddenly had an entire collection of voices in her head. Thankfully she figured out how to mute and ignore most of the voices quickly. "Okay, that's weird…"

Bitch wandered warily into the sheltered area where the rest of them were talking.

Charles grinned and waved at her as she walked up. "Hi."

Grue asked, "Are you all right?"

Tattletale smiled as she plucked a couple of thoughts from Grue's head, "I'm fine, we'll make this work and your sister should be fine."

"And if you're lucky you can tie Tattletale up later…" Charles snarked playfully.

Grue blinked, "What?"

"I figured she had to pick up at least one perverted thought and I figured the look on your face might be priceless." Charles shrugged.

Tattletale laughed, "I think I'm going to enjoy this."

Bitch looked at Tattletale, "Do we have a problem?"

"Nope, but if you like we can do some repairs on your powers… and I can help you with some of the mental trauma you've went through. Worked for Noelle here anyway." Charles said as he gently squeezed the girl in his arms. "Wait, are we keeping them or letting them use this base?"

Mist frowned slightly as he felt parahumans getting closer, "Did you guys tell the Travelers?"

Tattletale shook her head, "No but Genesis should have been in the base. Her projection would have vanished or started acting weird."

Charles grinned as he used his 'Xavier Powers' to make it look like Noelle was sitting curled up in a chair, and Tattletale, Bitch and Grue were alone to the Travelers who showed up.

Trickster was the first that showed up by swapping places with Grue. He looked at Noelle, "You're cured!"

Tattletale sighed at Trickster's lack of tact, "Some friends fixed her."

Charles grinned and ran his fingers up and down Noelle's sides, gently tickling her as he sent Tattletale and the original other two a mental message 'Play along, I've made it so they can't see us.'

Noelle smiled at Trickster, "I'm still getting used to my legs being my legs again…"

Charles playfully tickled the sole of one of Noelle's feet.

Sundancer and Ballistic walked up with an annoyed looking Grue. Sundancer stared at Noelle, "You're back?"

Noelle giggled, "Stop that! I mean I'm good now…"

Charles chuckled silently against her back and continued teasingly tickling her. 'I'm playing a trick on your friends.' he sent to her mentally.

Ballistic asked, "Did Coil set this up?"

Mist snorted, "No, he didn't actually have any intention of helping her."

Ballistic jumped slightly as he looked around for the invisible cape. "Who's there?"

"Just your friendly neighborhood Spider… yeah I can't do it."

Charles swapped the hard light disguise on Mist for a Spiderman costume and dropped the visual block so they could see Mist.

Tattletale smirked, "Nice costume."

Mist glanced down at himself, "Right… so anyway, we were discussing what to do about Coil. Lisa wanted to have a chat with him before he dies a painful death, I'm not all that concerned either way but I like the base."

"And I'm playing pranks on people." Charles faded into visibility, still in his Thor suit with Noelle in his lap, sliding his fingers into her hair to massage her scalp.

Trickster glared at Charles before swapping places with him which caused him to have a momentary smirk on his face before he fell through the TK field. "What the hell?"

Noelle said, "Relax Krouse, they're the ones that fixed my powers."

Charles chuckled, leaning back on his TK field like a couch. "Want back up here?" he asked Noelle who was floating in place after Trickster fell on his ass.

She smiled then shook her head, "Maybe later, I want to have a chat with Coil, he made promises."

"Keep in mind, the clothes you're wearing are a hard light hologram, we'll have to shop for real ones. Though those will provide full coverage until you're not around me." Charles grinned and dropped to his feet.

Trickster glared but managed to keep his mouth shut for once.

Charles raised an eyebrow at Noelle then playfully waggled it.

"Shopping sounds nice."

Sundancer said, "We should probably have a chat with Coil."

Mist sighed, "Just remember that we need some information before you do anything too drastic to him. The air should be clear. We should probably check on Genesis."

'I copied everything Coil knew of any use.' Charles sent to Mist mentally. "Crap! I forgot she'd be in there… hopefully she had a good trip not a bad one. Ah well; we can heal her."

Ballistic headed down the concealed stairs into the base to check on Oliver and Genesis.

Bitch asked, "Are we fighting or not?"

Tattletale stated, "Not!"

Bitch relaxed slightly.

Mist asked, "So, Tattletale, how much do you think you'll be able to get out of Coil?"

"With telepathy and my power? All of it or at least most of his money. I can probably do the same thing for most of his mercenaries."

"I have a feeling this is the start of a beautiful friendship."

"Especially if you fix her powers so she doesn't get info overload…" Charles chuckled as he followed the rest of the group.

"Yeah, that's on the list of things to do. Right up there with finding a lawyer that can get some of Bitch's old crimes tossed."

"Zip ties?"

"Always fun…"

Grue snorted, "Right, so what exactly do you need help with?"

"Saving the world." Mist laughed as he walked down the stairs into the secret lair.

"Personally or overall?" Charles replied to Grue's question as he continued floating along behind them.

"Both?"

"Ummm… Hmmm… I'm a lover not a fighter…"

Tattletale snorted. "Pull the other one."

"Okay, maybe I'd rather be a lover than a fighter. But anyway, I don't have goals other than unfucking a lot of the fucked stuff this world is so full of." Charles replied. "But cuddles are great." he said and watched Trickster twitch as he continued storming down the stairs in front of them.

~#~Scene Break~#~

Selena looked up as Mist and Charles entered the lair, "Okay, you look way too smug, what did you do?"

"I am now Professor Charles Xavier… and I really pissed off a jealous boyfriend." Charles replied with a laugh as he tossed himself down on a couch and dropped the hard light projection of Thor and the one of Spiderman over Mist.

Mist grinned, "We might have captured a villain's lair, stole all his money then turned him into the cops with a mental suggestion to confess to his crimes."

Selena asked, "That's it?"

Mist shrugged, "I'm a suspicious about why he was dancing like a lunatic when he walked into the police department to confess to a laundry list of crimes but other than that it went fine."

Charles replied, "He wasn't dancing like a lunatic he was doing the samba without a partner."

"Ah, that explains so much."

"He'll also be confessing to a lot of stuff that was attributed to Bitch too." Charles grinned.

"That should make it easier to get her out of most of her legal issues." Mist grinned, "We also helped save a girl from a monstrous fate and the city from a few million dollars in damages."

"How?"

"Cured a monster and got Charles a werewolf form."

Charles focused on the new ability and activated it, turning to look in one of the discarded hotel mirrors to see what he looked like.

Selena looked at the large muscular black werewolf that looked more humanoid than something that traveled on four legs, "That's a bit scary."

"Neat," Charles rumbled out. "I think I like it."

"It makes for a good costume in a lot of ways."

Mist grinned, "Now we just need to get Selena a Little Red Riding Hood outfit."

Charles snorted in laughter.

Selena playfully flipped Mist off then asked, "What about your costume?"

"He's the friendly neighborhood spider man." Charles grinned wolfishly.

Mist sighed, "Right, because that won't get me in trouble with someone… and I have zero claim to that name or any spider themed name."

"You were saying it."

"Yeah, as a joke." Mist grinned as he turned to look at Selena, "Did you build anything interesting?"

"I finished my deluxe coffee maker. I'd try to get some sleep but I actually used it and I'm wired." She smirked at Mist.

"Great, you're going to crash so hard it's not even funny."

"What about you?"

"I'm not tired." Mist shrugged. "So which group should we piss off next?"

Charles shrugged his currently lupine shoulders. "We can use hardlight to piss off whoever you want… and I have tons of Tinkertech gear from Coil's goons we can play with."

"Let's pull a trick from Leet and go as game characters."

"Which characters? I'm already walking around as Thor 90% of the time… that reminds me, I need to shave. The ZZ-Top beard is cool, but tucking it under a hardlight disguise all the time is annoying. Plus it's hot." Charles muttered and manifested a mirror, shifting into his normal form and creating a straight razor and a pair of scissors.

"We've got blasters which means anything from science fiction might work. If we take Selena we could do a Star Wars theme."

Selena raised an eyebrow, "Why does that depend on me?"

"Princess Leia…"

"I'm not going as a slave girl."

"That reminds me; I want to make a bowcaster." Charles said as he worked the scissors through his beard, wincing every time long strands of his beard hit the floor. "Not even an Orion slave girl from Star Trek?" Charles grinned over at her, "They basically ruled the Orion empire you know."

Selena considered, "Nope. Give me a couple hours and I'll make a lightsaber then we can go as something amusing. Say, can you give us lightning powers? I mean Sith are better than Jedi right?"

"I've already got designs dancing in my head for lightning gloves… We just need batteries good enough to make them worthwhile… But he probably can." Charles chuckled as he finished shaving.

Mist shrugged, "Hell, I'll just give you psychokinesis that way you can pull off several different types of energy. It should be enough to stun people without hurting them too much." He conjured a ball of sparkly power and tossed it to Selena and another for Charles.

Selena grinned as she felt the energy settle in, "That's probably one of the most broken powers ever."

Charles grinned… "I still think being Professor Xavier is cooler, but yeah he's got some of the most broken powers because he can give us anything we can think of…"

Mist glanced at Charles, "The Eidolon stuff is fairly broken as well."

"Hey, I still don't even have more than a third of that filled up and am using one of the slots for a container to hold random powers you grab from people." Charles grinned wickedly.

"That's a good point. I want to steal a couple of powers from the Empire. Othala's power is way too useful to leave in Empire hands."

"What is Othala's power?" Charles asked curiously. "I can't remember the name offhand, that's random crap that didn't stick."

"She can temporarily grant exceptional durability, speed, regeneration and I think flight… maybe a couple of other things as well. One power a person but hell that's still a useful power for things like Endbringer fights. I also wouldn't mind stealing Victor's power that let's him steal people's skills."

Selena frowned, "That sounds mean."

"I can probably upgrade the power to copy skills rather than steal them."

"They're all douchebags anyway." Charles shrugged as he evened up his ponytail while he was occupied with grooming anyway. "Wait, why am I acting like a girl and checking for split ends?" Charles rubbed his hands down over his face. "Gleh. I think going through and fixing Noelle may have warped my brain."

Selena shook her head, "No, I meant his power, not us stealing it from a Nazi."

Mist laughed, "It's possible."

"Nah, it's just fun picking on Trickster; I think I'll have to cuddle her in front of him some more. It's funny as hell watching him fall on his ass when I'm using TK for a chair and he tries teleporting me out and himself in." Charles chuckled and lit a cigar.

"Yeah, it really is."

Selena grinned as she sent a small bolt of electricity at Mist, "Hey it works."

Mist jumped back slightly on reflex even if it couldn't actually hurt him. "Hey… Wait, never mind I don't have any electronics."

"Okay, give me twenty minutes and I can probably turn one of those weapons into a lightsaber."

Mist looked over at Charles and asked, "Sure, mortal combat or the fighting game clone we bought?"

Charles grinned, "I'll help make lightsabers… Hell I want one too, besides I still want a bowcaster."

"Cool. I'll bash some monsters and look at costume ideas, yeah that's it research."

Selena laughed as she headed off to the lab. "Have fun."


	3. Chapter 3

"Selena grumbled as she dropped the Empire thug she had been holding up with her telekinesis, "Dog fighting, I mean seriously why can't they just beat each other bloody and bet on it?"

Mist asked, "Because people are stupid?"

"I was thinking they're just cocksuckers." Charles shrugged.

"I've got no problems hitting a dog fighting ring, we might be able to deal with Hookwolf." Mist grinned as he looked at Selena's Sith Sorcerer costume, "Besides, I like the idea of screwing with the heroes by looking like Sith."

Selena grinned behind her mask as she headed to the warehouse where the dog fighting was going on. She frowned slightly at the line of people outside the building. "I've got half a mind to give everyone in the building a compulsion to turn themselves in."

"Well, I could just knock everyone out and call the cops…" Charles shrugged.

Mist asked, "We're calling the cops after we loot the safe, right?"

"Hell yeah." Selena smirked as she reached out and started checking on people's minds and reason for being at an illegal fight.

Mist stretched his awareness out looking for people with powers. "There's three capes in the building... metal transformation, some type of speed and durability boosting power and kinetic control. Huh, I'm guessing there are already heroes here."

Selena grinned, "So we knock everyone else out, it still works."

~#~Scene Break~#~

Battery looked around in confusion as people started falling asleep in the middle of the dog fighting ring they were preparing to bust. "What the hell?"

Assault glanced around, "I'm guessing a Master or something."

Hookwolf shouted, "What the hell is going on?" He glared as three figures in hooded robes with lightsabers walked in through the doors. "What the fuck?"

Battery spun to look at the three figures, "This can't be good."

"Ey dick'ead!" Charles called at Hookwolf, "I don't appreciate idiots running dogfights!"

Hookwolf changed into a whirling twisting mess of metal and blades and charged the three of them with a roar.

Battery held still as she worked on charging her power so that she could save the would-be heroes.

Charles threw out a hand and Hookwolf shot into the air and hung there. "I find your lack of faith disturbing." He said tongue firmly in cheek as he mimicked James Earl Jones.

Hookwolf twisted and tried to extend his metal blades far enough to matter but couldn't quite manage it. "I'll kill you."

Mist yawned, "Good luck with that." He reached out and ripped Hookwolf's power from him leaving the shard with Hookwolf.

"Many people have tried, no one has succeeded." Charles chuckled and spun Hookwolf like a dreidel.

Battery watched in shock as Hookwolf turned back into a person and started screaming bloody murder as a glowing ball of energy flew out of him and to the hand of one of the Sith impersonators. "Fuck me."

Assault raised an eyebrow as he looked over the lightsabers, "Can I have one of those for my birthday Puppy?"

Battery snorted, "I doubt it…"

"Maybe later sweetheart." Charles replied to Battery with a grin and tossed his lightsaber to Assault with a grin. "Here, have one. It's on me."

Battery muttered, "Ah shit… fucking paperwork."

Assault grinned as he swung the blade around to test it. "Thanks."

"If you cut your limbs off … well, don't lose your head but Panacea can probably reattach other things." Charles chuckled. "Stun setting is the green button."

Battery asked somewhat nervously, "Are you heroes?"

Selena nodded, "Yep."

"We're Sith knights, can't you tell?" Charles asked and waggled his eyebrows at Battery.

Assault followed the gaze of one of the Sith toward the backroom, "We should probably go call this in. Catching Hookwolf is a big deal."

Battery said, "I'll call it in, you keep an eye on Hookwolf."

Charles grinned as Hookwolf puked all over himself. "Awww, I broke my dreidel."

Assault snickered as he pulled out a camera and took picture of Hookwolf spinning in circles covered in puke. "Evidence, you understand."

"Of course." Charles grinned at him and lit a cigar, puffing it happily.

Battery muttered darkly to herself as she headed out of the metal building so that she could get cell reception.

Mist asked, "Do you mind if we start zip tying everyone?"

"That makes my job easier and it's funny." He smirked as he started walking around taking pictures of everyone that was unconscious.

Selena worked on sorting through people's minds and zip tying them while they were unconscious.

Charles meanwhile amused himself by holding Hookwolf upside down and making him hug himself with TK as if he was in a straight jacket. Incidentally smearing puke all over at the same time.

Assault asked, "So, what names do I put on the report?"

"I'm James Earl Jones, this is Anakin Skywalker and Padme Amidala." Charles replied with a grin.

"Right, so refused to identify themselves in a meaningful way, got it. Oh, don't worry I'll write the names down, it will drive Ms Piggy nuts."

Charles just grinned back at him. "Wasn't that the whole point? You could always say one of us identified himself as Kermit…"

Assault smirked, "So who are you going after next?"

"I'll be right back, I need the safe, I mean bathroom…" Mist tossed the sparkly ball to Charles then headed to the back room to loot the safe.

Charles caught it in one hand and acted like he was tucking it into an inner robe pocket, concealing the fact he was absorbing it from Assault.

Assault asked, "How long is he going to be normal?"

"Until the sun grows old and dim?" Charles shrugged.

"Shit, that's going to cause some issues…"

"You could always put down that you don't know." Charles grinned. "Less paperwork all around that way."

Assault smirked, "Yeah, that sounds easier; and it should drive Armsmaster nuts."

"Always a bonus."

Assault glanced around, "Is this going to be a common thing?"

Selena said, "I don't like dog fighting and I don't care for psychotic gang members."

Assault tilted his head, "In that case, I should get Battery to agree to do the paperwork for the next couple of weeks."

"I recommend steak and lobster as bribes." Charles nodded firmly.

Assault chuckled, "Then again, it might be a good time to take some vacation time before Piggy realizes there's going to be a problem."

Selena laughed as she collected yet another credit card from one of the unconscious people and the 225 dollars in his wallet. "That might be a good idea. I don't suppose you know where more of the Empire's capes are?"

Assault considered the merits of letting slip several of the locations that the Protectorate knew about but weren't willing to attack because of political reasons and or safety concerns. "Yeah, I might have a couple of ideas."

~#~Scene Break~#~

Mist winced as he looked at the rather large bill for the computer parts that Selena wanted to buy for their Tinkertech computers, "Easy come, easy go?"

"Essentially." Charles chuckled, "generally it takes money to make money... "

Mist smiled slightly as Selena handed him a rather large bag to carry. "Ready?"

"Yep," she replied as she picked up a rather large flat screen TV box. Selena grinned as she headed for the exit of the store.

Mist asked as they left the store, "I should have copied Trickster's teleport power or something better, then we could just teleport the box back to the base."

Charles chuckled, shrugging a bit. "Meh, he's a douche. Plus it might break if we teleported it."

"Point."

Charles' telepathy picked up a group of drug users in the alley in front of the group with hostile intentions and with a nod they suddenly fell all over each other and started making out noisily, their guns forgotten and tossed to the alley floor.

Mist snorted, "I'm glad that I'm immune to that type of crap."

Selena grinned, "It makes it easier. His mind is a scary place."

"Damn straight." Mist frowned slightly, "Skitter probably makes her debut tonight or tomorrow, we should probably look into that or grab a phonebook, I'm fairly sure her father's name is in it."

"Yup." Charles nodded.

Selena asked, "That's the bug user, yes?"

"Yep, nothing like having control of all of the insects in a couple of city blocks for spying on people."

"Remind me not to tick her off."

"That reminds me, we should look into alternate exits for the base. I mean seriously those can't be the only two exits."

Selena smirked, "There's an exit to the abandoned subway tunnels in the Tinker's lab. I'm assuming it's so that they can bring in materials without dragging stuff through the hotel."

Mist rubbed his face, "And you're just now mentioning that?"

"It was in the report, you just didn't read it?"

"Or see it?"

"It was written on invisible paper in the future." Selena tried and failed to look innocent.

"In the bathroom probably, so you already wiped your ass with it." Charles chuckled.

Selena snickered, "Details. We can explore the tunnels later."

"That works." Mist rolled his eyes as he thought about the projects he was going to need to work on.

~#~Scene Break~#~

Mist looked down at the scrap of paper he had written the address on then up at the house he was standing in front of. "It's certainly seen better days but it's not too bad. Mind the first step."

"We should make a repair ray." Charles muttered.

"Yeah, because that's not broken as hell."

"We're all broken." Charles replied with a grin.

"Point." Mist skipped the first step and knocked on the front door.

Charles extended his senses to check who was in the house, whistling softly as he lit a cigar. "They're both inside."

A short time later the door opened two inches and a girl asked, "How can I help you?"

Mist said, "We're looking for Skitter."

The girl asked confused, "Who?"

The door opened the rest of the way and a rather tall slender man stood there with a black haired girl looking past him. "Who are you?"

Charles slapped a hand over his eyes and ran it down over his face. Then waved at Taylor and her dad with the hand holding his cigar. "Hi, I'm Thor this is Loki and the lovely lady is Sif."

Danny asked, "What do you want?"

Selena snickered, "We're selling Girl Scouts. I mean Girl Scout cookies."

Mist sighed, "Actually, we're recruiting for a hero group and figured Taylor might like the chance to help improve the city using her fantastic control of bugs and such things."

Taylor gulped, "What? I mean… crap…"

Danny looked back and forth between his daughter and the strange people that were probably capes.

"His tact is nil… I'd have at least lead with a joke." Charles shrugged. "Oh to hell with it, might as well show some trust." Charles dropped his Thor disguise, revealing his freshly shaven face and Metallica t-shirt and black jeans and combat boots. "Hi Taylor, Hi Danny… Yes we're capes, and we're offering to help." He said as he made sure everyone aside from Taylor and Danny couldn't pay any attention or notice what was happening.

"Maybe you should come in…" Danny sighed as he stepped out of the way of the door.

"Sure." Charles stubbed out his cigar on his boot and tossed it out of the yard and wandered inside.

Selena smiled at the Heberts as she walked in. "Thanks."

Mist sighed as he walked into the house hoping that Taylor didn't hit him in the face with pepper spray. "Thanks."

Danny asked, "What's this about Taylor having powers?"

"Recently I'm guessing she had a very traumatic event that would have triggered her power." Charles replied. "Which is never good for anyone; shitty events lead to bad things. We can help fix and upgrade her powers, plus high school is hell without bitches harassing you."

Danny asked, "Locker?"

Taylor decided that there was little point denying things as they apparently knew about her ability to control insects already. "Yeah…"

"Just call me Charles Xavier; I can heal mental damage if you want me to." Charles said after she finished talking as he leaned against the wall. "He can upgrade your powers."

Taylor shook head as she could have sworn he said that his friend could upgrade powers, "I'm fine but if you can help me get rid of them…"

"Do you know what fine stands for? It's a military acronym." Charles grinned. "It stands for fucked up, insecure, neurotic and emotional." He counted off on his fingers.

Taylor sighed but didn't disagree.

Mist said, "On that note we should probably talk about revenge options for the three main annoyances. Emma Barns, Sophia Hess and Madison something…"

Danny exploded, "Emma Barns?"

Taylor winced, "Ah… I didn't want to worry you."

"If I'm remembering correctly Emma actually has a reason for how she's acting… I think she was raped… not that it gives her an excuse, but she has some mental issues stemming from that." Charles muttered as he tapped his chin thoughtfully. "I miss my beard."

Mist sighed, "Assaulted at least and then Sophia Hess A.K.A Shadow Stalker got to her and screwed her head up."

Taylor blinked a couple of times, "That's how the bitch got in my locker?"

Danny opened his mouth to call his daughter on her language then decided that he agreed.

Mist said, "Either that or they bribed or charmed someone in the office to give them your combination, I wouldn't put it past them or the school."

"Or just picked the lock; most lockers at schools don't have very good locks to start with." Charles shrugged. "I know the ones at my high school sucked so I carried all my stuff with me all the time."

Danny asked, "What are you talking about when you say revenge?"

"He's a borderline megalomaniac; don't ask him that." Charles replied with a chuckle.

Selena said, "We're a full service operation here. Mostly we were going to offer to help you test out of school early, get Emma some mental help and make sure that Sophia is kicked out of the Wards."

Charles shrugged, "I'd prefer getting Sophia mental help to getting her kicked out of the Wards program … but that's just me. Whichever causes less misery. Oh and I was gonna help by going into your mind and healing the damage and poking him until he worked his magic on your powers."

Taylor said, "I just want them to stop."

Danny asked, "Is that even legal?"

Mist shrugged, "It's technically not a crime to share a person's identity as long as it wasn't learned as part of an Endbringer battle and it wasn't."

"What part?" Charles shrugged. "I wasn't going to give them any option on the mental health part, so that's me using my powers on them whether they liked it or not. So it's probably illegal, but I don't give a flying fuck. So is stuffing a girl into a locker full of used personal items."

Danny glanced at Taylor then back at Charles, "Good."

Taylor stared at her dad, "What?"

"They locked you in a locker, you could have died…" He took a breath. "I can see why the school didn't do anything considering one of them is a Ward."

Taylor scowled, "I was hoping to be a hero."

"I can't, being a Ward doesn't give you a free pass to be a cocksucker." Charles stated flatly. "I'm thinking I'll borrow Taylor's memory of being stuffed in that locker and make them all relive it for a week every time they sleep."

Mist said, "No but the school gets money and prestige out of it. You should add some of the teachers to that list. They're the ones that didn't report Sophia's behavior to the PRT.

"Who said they weren't at the top of the list?" Charles replied with a raised eyebrow.

"Just checking."

Charles turned to Taylor, "No one is saying you can't be a hero, as a matter of fact the world needs more heroes; I just want to help you so you aren't fine anymore and you can actually be happy. I'd also like you to get your friend back… Sure, Emma has been a bitch lately but if she was raped like I think she was there were extenuating circumstances." He sighed and shook his head. "I'll have to see her to tell though and any friendship between the two of you is entirely up to you."

Taylor shook her head, "Just get her help… and we'll see." She really couldn't see that happening but if there actually was a reason then that made the past couple of years hurt a little less.

"I'm offering you help first; but you I'm giving the option to say no." Charles stuck a unlit cigar in his mouth and crunched the end firmly between his teeth. "Do you care if I light this? I can send the smoke straight out a window."

Danny said, "That's fine…" in a rather distracted manner.

Charles lit his cigar and cracked a window using his TK to guide the smoke out of it.

Taylor asked, "How can you help me be a hero?"

Mist said, "Mostly we're looking for help with reconnaissance which your power is excellent at."

Danny looked at Taylor, "What is your power?"

Taylor sighed, "Bug control. Not the best power in the world."

Mist laughed, "It's actually better than that. It's bug control and a massive ability to multitask with the bugs. Your multi tasking ability with those things is off the charts. Besides, we can help you get new powers if you want."

Charles puffed on his cigar as he gently felt around in Taylor's mind, seeking out the damaging moments and mental issues caused by her activating her shard and her other issues. "Ready for me to start repairing the damage?" he raised an eyebrow at Taylor with a gentle smile.

Taylor asked, "Will it hurt?" She frowned, "Wait, new powers? Would I have to give up my current power?"

"Nope, it won't hurt and yes new powers. No you wouldn't have to give up your current powers." Charles replied to the question. "Do you think my powers started with Telepathy?"

"Telepathy? But that's impossible… isn't it?"

Charles grinned at her around the cigar and gently started manipulating her mind to heal the damage he found. 'You tell me.' he responded in her mind.

Taylor jumped, "Gah!"

Danny asked, "Are you okay?"

Taylor blinked a couple of times, "Yeah… he's got some type of ability that lets me hear his thoughts…"

Danny pictured a king of spades, "If I asked what card I was thinking about?"

'King of Spades,' Charles replied in his mind.

"That's strange."

Taylor stared at Charles, "That should be impossible, you're the first telepath I've ever heard of."

"I try and do at least a dozen impossible things before breakfast." Charles grinned at the two of them as he finished up healing her mental issues. "If you have any body issues those are fixable as well." He waggled his eyebrows playfully at her.

Taylor smiled slightly, "Okay, Alice. What do you mean body issues?" She snuck a glance at her father then shook her head and lied, "I'm okay…"

"If you want to be taller, or … anything else. Lying to a telepath is impossible by the way. But if you want to talk it over in private that's fine as well." Charles chuckled.

'I could use larger breasts if you can fix them, I mean not huge but...'

Charles nodded once, having read her mind. 'Of course, you might want to talk it over with your dad but I can do it without any surgery or anything invasive.'

'I'll think about it.' Taylor blushed. She asked, "What types of powers can you offer?"

Mist shrugged, "Lot's of things. I've got a limit of the number of upgrades I can give a day but I haven't hit a cap yet for the powers that I give someone."

"Well, he's given me … telepathy, telekinesis, super speed… and tinker abilities thus far." Charles grinned at her. "Plus he gave me the ability to change shape into a werewolf and gave me Hookwolf's power … that should be neat when they're combined."

Danny choked out, "Hookwolf?"

Mist said, "We stole his power and turned him over to Assault and Battery."

Charles grinned and pulled out his cell phone, showing Danny and Taylor a video of the amazing dreidel Hookwolf with the Technicolor yawn. "See? Of course, that was James Earl Jones, Anakin Skywalker, and Padme Amidala that did that… and Kermit the frog."

Selena said, "We're still having fun with our powers. I'm a Tinker naturally and a telepath, telekinetic, speedster and a brute because of Mist's power granting ability. It's one of the more broken abilities I've ever seen."

"Danny, ever wanted to be a cape?" Charles grinned and chuckled.

Mist said, "We could always set him up with Magneto's power so that he could clean up the Boat Graveyard."

"And give him Tinker abilities so he could use the metals for stuff…" Charles shrugged and trailed off, puffing his cigar.

Danny asked, "What's the downside to getting the powers?"

Mist shook his head, "There isn't any as far as I know. There's no trigger event and no shard messing with you. It's a complete upgrade. I can only give out ten powers or upgrades a day but that's not a large limit in the grand scheme of things."

"What do you get out of this?"

"I get the knowledge that someone responsible gets powers and is going to use them to help people. That and cleaning up the Boat Graveyard should help the city which will bring in more money."

"A less fucked world? We're trapped here so unfucking the fucked is one of my personal missions." Charles grinned at the two of them. "Having super powers is great and all, but I prefer less fucked to super fucked … unless it's mutual and consensual but that's neither here nor there."

Danny said, "Okay. I'll do it."

Mist grinned, "Excellent, one Magneto package coming up." He conjured a ball of sparks then tossed it at Danny. "We should probably test that and then I'll boost it if I need to." Mist looked at Taylor, "What about you? I've got six more powers that I can hand out today, so what will it be?"

"I recommend your basic Czarnian." Charles put out the stub of his cigar.

Taylor asked, "What's that?"

"Czarnian's are a race from DC comics who can essentially stand up to or best the Justice League… Super Strength, Super Durable, Regeneration out the wazoo… no funky eye powers but they can survive hard vacuum without a suit. Eh… they can't fly but telekinesis can handle super strength and super durability and give flight all in one power."

Danny said, "I'd be a lot happier if you picked up more durability."

Mist rolled his eyes, "I suggest at least some durability as a fallback measure and psychokinesis which is telekinesis plus other forms of energy. That should let you fly as well."

Taylor said, "That's a good start."

"This might sting a bit." Mist reached out and pulled Taylor's power and shard out then destroyed the shard, boosted it with an orb so that it had better range and types of creatures that she could sense and control then gave it back to her. "Okay, that fixes that. Let's start with durability." He conjured an orb of durability and tossed it to her then tossed her a regeneration orb and a psychokinesis orb. "There, that should do it for now."

Taylor ran through the new creatures she could feel in her range, "Rats, cats, dogs, raccoons and other things…" She muttered sarcastically, "great."

Mist said, "There should be a mental off switch or rather switches. Just think about ignoring the animals or animal types that you don't want to deal with."

Taylor blinked as she found the mental switches he was talking about, "Oh… hey that's much better."

Mist turned to look at Danny, "Durability or regeneration?"

Danny said, "I always liked Wolverine."

"Regeneration it is." Mist conjured an orb and tossed it at Danny. "There."

Danny held up his hand and levitated a fork to him, "Do you really think this will help?"

Mist shrugged, "Hopefully. For your Tinker ability I'm thinking some type of metal path. That should let you do something useful with the scrap metal that you recover. We can always improve on that ability tomorrow."

"This isn't going to give me mental issues is it? I mean Armsmaster isn't a people person and some of the other Tinkers I've heard about aren't all there."

"Nah, my powers aren't broken like that. Besides, most of that isn't the power's fault."

"Do it before I change my mind."

"I can always alter the powers later or remove them if you change your minds." He conjured a sparkling ball and tossed it to Danny where it sunk into him.

Danny blinked as he looked at the fork he was levitating, "I know exactly what that's made out of now and how I could make it better…"

Mist rolled his eyes, "Apparently some things don't change."

Selena looked at the Heberts and grinned, "We should head to the boat graveyard and test out some new powers."

"Let me get my costume." Taylor headed for her room.

Danny blinked, "You have a costume?"

"Ah… yeah." Taylor darted into her room.

Mist smiled as Taylor shut her door behind her, "They grow up so fast don't they?"

Danny took a deep breath then let it out, "I failed her with the school. Can you make it right?"

"We can certainly make a decent attempt to make sure this type of crap doesn't happen for a while and to make sure that the people harassing your daughter get help. She's smart enough to test out of school. Either way; she's a cape, I know several ways that she could make money off her powers. Spider silk cloth for clothing or armor and working as pest removal would net her a decent living even if she never went to college."

"Why us?"

"Because you're decent people and this world needs more of them."

~#~Scene Break~#~

Mist frowned as he looked at the boat graveyard, "There is something rather disturbing with a society that just allows an entire boatyard to rot just because of a couple of sunk ships even if they are massive."

Charles shrugged, "I know in our world they'd have cleaned it up and stripped the boats of anything useful… Or cut the massive ships up so they weren't an issue and left them there as coral anchors. But they'd have made sure they weren't in the way before they just left them. Then again by maritime law in our world salvage is a big thing."

"Yeah, a long time ago. I figure Danny should be able to rip the metal into useful chunks then we can have it recycled. If we do the same with the rest of the boats, that should give him enough material to fix the ferry or at least that's the theory." Mist smiled slightly.

"Fixing the ferry is easy; well it will be with these resources if the city is willing to put it in private hands... " Charles said as he rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Danny definitely needs to have a costume before he goes all Magneto though. Hmmm, any suggestions as to what you all want to look like? I'm feeling kind of Thor myself."

"You're a telepath and the city is corrupt as fuck."

"Point."

Skitter asked, "Then what?"

Mist shrugged, "Then we see how many of the gangs we can take out before something else pops up. I have a couple of ideas on ways to deal with the Endbringers but that's going to take at least a couple of weeks to pull everything together."

"I have a few ideas on those guys myself…" Charles waggled his eyebrows in his Thor persona, "I may be a lover not a fighter but that doesn't mean I don't think I know some good ways to deal with Endbringers… Plus I know how and have the ability to deal with the capes Simurgh messes up."

Mist asked curiously, "Better than teleporting Leviathan to the moon?"

Skitter blinked, "Wait, you can do that?"

"Well I can't but I can probably give someone else the power to do it."

"Sounds amusing but I hope that idiot doesn't substantially increase the mass or decrease it once we get him there. It'd screw up the tides something awful." Charles replied.

"He probably can't decrease the mass but all the water he generates would have to go somewhere… though honestly that shouldn't be a problem here and it's not or maybe it is." Mist shrugged.

Charles chuckled and tousled Taylor's hair gently. "Don't worry about him, he has these moments when he doesn't make sense."

"It made sense to me, he generates water continuously as near as I can figure."

"So use him as a big angry piece of terraforming equipment?" Charles chuckled.

"Hell yeah, we might as well put him to use." Mist smiled.

Skitter shook her head, "Lots of powers don't actually work correctly on them."

"We won't know until someone tries."

Danny looked around the boat graveyard, "I'm not actually sure how to feel in this getup." he waved at the Magneto costume with full helmet he was wearing.

"It's a hard light hologram; if you want to change it later … well we've already been pranking every cape we came across using it." Charles grinned.

Selena smirked, "It helps them relax."

"All things considered, not being stressed is a good thing." Mist glanced away from the boat graveyard.

"Hmmm, I wonder how many people would be less stressed if I opened a body mod clinic? I mean; I think a lot of these heroes and villains act like dicks because they're trying to compensate for something lacking…" Charles tapped his chin thoughtfully.

Mist frowned, "Honestly opening a clinic would probably help Panacea's stress level. Telling the damned cheapskate hospitals to pay her would probably help her stress levels. I know having a 'chat' with her 'Mom' and 'Dad' would probably lower her stress levels."

"Probably… fixing Glory Girl's powers before she makes Panacea completely go nuts over her would probably help a lot too. Especially if Panacea wasn't inclined to sapphic leanings to start with." Charles mused. "I mean, if Panacea is heterosexual falling in love with a girl would have to be a mind fuck, much less falling in love with her sister."

"I'll add fixing Glory Girl's power to my list. That's assuming that her power actually had anything to do with it and that Amy wasn't just warped to start with. Still, either way, giving her an off switch for her powers is probably a good idea."

"Well, I can unfuck her brain… both their brains." Charles shrugged. "It's just stupid to allow capes that powerful to run around on the crazy train."

Selena snickered, "All aboard."

Skitter shook her head, "Trigger events tend to twist people."

"Hey, I unfucked your head… and several other capes. Having Professor X's powers doesn't suck." Charles grinned at her, tousling her hair again.

Danny said, "We should probably catch some dinner then sleep."

"Grrrmph… I have to go back to high school for at least one day… Blech, the idea is horrifying." Charles muttered.

Mist laughed, "Better you than me. I'd probably do something drastic to the idiots there. At least it's Saturday. That gives us a day to plan things out."

Charles shrugged. "Hell if I really wanted to stir things up at the high school, what I'd do is give out free boob and butt and leg sculpting to everyone who wanted it and walk off with a grin."

"Starting a 'plastic' surgery company sounds amusing. I mean there has to be some type of market for safe and quick upgrades."

"Just call me your friendly neighborhood Tzimisce?" Charles snickered.

Mist laughed, "Hopefully without the insanity."

Skitter asked, "Insanity?"

"It was a game thing."

"Ah."

"Fugly Bobs, my treat?" Mist pulled out two twenties.

Skitter grinned, "That sounds good."

Danny smiled, "Sure."

"Sounds good to me, we going in costume?" Charles asked with a grin.

Mist shrugged, "Sure, I've got no problem with that. If they have a problem we can always try somewhere else."


	4. Chapter 4

Mist grumbled slightly as he watched his character die thanks to being kicked off the ledge by a smirking Selena. "Great, so much for taking it easy on me."

"You're the one that has years and years more experience playing video games than me." Selena smirked.

"Is this your way of saying I'm old?"

"If the shoe fits."

Mist sighed as he set the controller down on the table, "Stupid fighting games."

Selena asked, "Now that I'm done beating you, what are we going to do for breakfast?"

"We should probably call Tattletale to see how she's doing stealing Coil's accounts and such things. Maybe check in with Taylor, I wouldn't mind making her some spiders that spin super strong webs for her silk production. Let's not forget visiting Panacea and Glory girl."

Charles chuckled, "Taylor wanted me to enhance her breasts… not that most teen girls probably wouldn't want the same. Selena, how much is too much before she talks herself into it? I'd rather not give in to her and make her look cartoonish or something if she hits a growth spurt."

Mist shrugged, "You should be able to check that with your shaper power."

Selena said, "I'd shoot for a B cup now so that she hits C later. Probably no more than that on her frame without looking weird."

"Gotcha, and if she wants me to enhance the rest I'll just go for lithe and elven featured rather than gawky human teenage girl." Charles snorted and shrugged. "I can always change it later if she doesn't like it.

Mist said, "Between that and fixing her eyesight I'm sure she'll be happy."

Selena glanced over toward the kitchen area, "At some point we're going to need to actually cook something in there."

"I'm a good cook, but we'll have to buy something other than computer parts for me to cook with." Charles chuckled. "I'm partial to pizza and lasagna … not to mention burgers. What month is it again?"

Selena smirked, "Or we could have Mist give someone a cooking tinker power."

Mist laughed, "That's not a bad idea but let's wait until we don't have a bunch of people to give powers to. I want to get a couple more people on our side for when the 9 show up."

"How long do you think it will take before they show up?"

"I'm guessing anywhere from a couple of days to a couple of weeks when we make a name for ourselves."

Assault looked at the group of squirming Merchant gang members that were hanging upside-down by their ankles from a street lamp then glanced over at the bag filled with weapons. "I could get used to this."

Battery shook her head, "How long do you think they've been like this?"

"We got the call ten minutes ago, we got here two minutes ago. At least they're gagged so they're not screaming."

Battery sighed, "Gagging them with their own underwear seems cruel and unusual."

"They're drug dealers. I'm not feeling particularly charitable."

"You know they took the money right?"

Assault snorted, "Where's your proof, I mean I didn't see any cash here, did you?"

Battery glanced over when Armsmaster pulled up on his motorcycle, "You know how these things work, there should at least be some cash."

"It's not like being a hero pays well." Assault had made far more money as a jailbreak specialist than he had as a hero.

Armsmaster got off his bike and stalked toward where Assault and Battery were standing, "Report."

Assault gestured at the gang members that were hanging upside down from the streetlight, "They were like that when we got here."

"And why haven't you cut them down?"

"They're normal gang members, it's a job for the cops."

Armsmaster grunted, "Did you at least ask them what happened?"

Assault decided that saying it was more amusing to watch them struggle wouldn't go over well. "You're the one with the lie detector but yeah I was considering it."

Armsmaster scowled, "Fine, finish your patrol, I'll try to get something out of them and make sure the scene isn't disturbed until the cops get here."

"Thanks." Assault smirked as he turned and walked away with Battery.

Armsmaster called out, "I still expect a report on this!"

Charles smirked where he was hidden behind hard light camouflage bending the light around him and followed Assault and Battery, dropping down to soundlessly fly behind them and then after dropping back about five feet used his TK to pinch Battery on the rear.

Battery jumped and spun around, "Damn it."

Assault turned and looked around, "What's up?"

"Someone pinched my ass."

"And you didn't even swat Assault for it…" Charles sighed as he resumed visibility in his Sith outfit.

Assault laughed. "I see how it is."

"Hey, I didn't even touch her ass…" Charles chuckled with a grin.

Battery sighed, "Great, another one."

"Another one what?" Charles raised an eyebrow.

"Prankster." She glanced over at Assault. "This is your fault somehow."

"Of course it's his fault. I figured I use TK to pinch your rear, he gets swatted … you two get to kiss and make up later?" Charles waggled his eyebrows.

Assault reached over and lightly swatted Battery's behind. "Nah, she…" He trailed off as Battery gave him a death glare. "Right, so was there something else?"

"Well, I thought about pranking Armsmaster but I figured giving him a coronary wasn't worth it. How did Miss Piggy like the fact that Kermit was helping solve gang violence and was present when Hookwolf's powers went splat?" Charles grinned.

"I don't think I've seen her that red in a long time. Thankfully Battery backed me up on that because I don't think she would have believed me."

Battery said, "The lab techs are saying that it's permanent."

Charles shrugged. "So?"

"So? You've made a lot of people really nervous. Someone in the PRT blabbed on the forums as well…"

Charles shrugged again. "Doesn't bother me… maybe it'll slow stupidity and gang violence if they think people can steal their powers - especially since they don't have a good description. I mean, Sith Impersonators…" he trailed off, laughing.

Assault snorted, "Most likely the villains will just go for the kill as quickly as they can."

"This is new how?" Charles shrugged. "Better than torturing people like they do now."

"Probably true. So did you want another couple of addresses that I don't officially know about?

"Sure, why not?" Charles grinned and shrugged. "Wouldn't bother me."

Battery sighed, "Piggot is going to flip…"

"Who says pokemon lady needs to know?" Charles grinned at her.

She pulled out a small notebook from her belt pouch, ripped a page out of it and handed Charles the page. "Have fun."

Charles folded it after examining it and poked it into his pocket. "Thanks. So, what are you two doing anyway?"

"Looking for problems, making our presence known and that crap."

"Armsmaster has a problem - there's a stick so far up his ass his eyes are turning brown; you could always help him with that?" Charles grinned.

"Not with a ten foot pole and a hazmat suit. Speaking of, we should probably get moving otherwise we'll get a call asking if we need assistance."

"I need to visit a high school anyway." Charles shrugged.

Battery asked, "Why? Or do I want to know?"

"Some students need Jedi assistance." Charles replied with a smirk.

"Anything we can help with? Or is that one of those things that we're better off not knowing about?"

"Uhh… hmmm… it involves a Ward but if she gets lippy I'll just give her a spanking." Charles shrugged.

Battery frowned, "Which one?"

"Eh … I'm trying to keep her out of trouble, so I'll plead the fifth on that one." Charles replied with a shrug.

Assault snorted, "I doubt Vista is causing trouble which means Shadow Stalker, great… have fun with that."

"I intend to. Like I said, if she gets lippy I fully intend to give her a spanking. Someone needs to; she needs an attitude readjustment." Charles replied as he pulled out and lit a cigar with a Hannibal Smith grin.

Battery wrote her number on a piece of paper and handed it to him, "Go ahead and call if you run into a problem."

"Sure thing." Charles waved and disappeared back behind his Predator imitation and flew off toward the school in question.

~#~Scene Break~#~

Mist adjusted his monkey mask as he walked down the ABB controlled street with a sign saying "Lung Sucks Monkey Shit." He waved cheerfully at the group of Asian street thugs that formed up to confront him.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Mist gestured to the sing, "You mean this? I'm exercising my right to free speech. If your fucking cunt of a boss as a problem with me he can come out here and face me."

"You're insane." One of the guys said, "Call the boss."

Another one pointed a gun at Mist and said, "Fuck that, let's just shoot him."

Mist looked at the guy that had suggested shooting him, "If you pull that trigger I'm going to stuff my sign up your ass."

The gang member stared in open mouthed shock as the bullet bounced off the joker in the monkey mask, "Shit! Fucking shoot him!"

Mist sighed as most of the gang members opened fire despite the lack of results the first shot had. "I'm going to need more signs." He reached out with his psychokinesis and lifted all of the gang members that had shot him. "Okay, I'm done playing nice. So here is the deal." He pointed to the one gang member that didn't pull out a gun. "You're going to tell your parahuman bosses that I'm going to come and slap them until they get a clue..." Mist trailed off as someone teleported in and stabbed him in the back. "Excellent."

Oni Lee frowned as his blade bounced off the cape that he had been trying to kill. Sadly for his continued health he had already pulled the pin of a grenade and dropped it at the feet of the man with the sign when he realized that he couldn't teleport anymore.

Mist jumped back as the grenade went off, set the other grenades off in a spectacular pyroclasm of light and noise which took out most of the gang members along with Oni Lee. "Well shit, that didn't work as planned."

The one surviving gang member who had been shielded from the blast stared in horror as his mind tried to comprehend what had just happened.

Mist glanced at his bloody and burned sign, "Well crap…" He looked at the sparkly ball of Oni Lee's powers. "Teleportation and cloning, a little tweaking and someone can probably do something useful with this." He sighed as he continued walking through the ABB territory fishing for Lung or Bakuda.

~#~Scene Break~#~

Winslow High School wasn't all that impressive in the grand scheme of things. It was a place that had let a lot of maintenance slip over the years and the children were allowed to run wild because the administrators were too afraid of reprisals from the gangs to crack down on the gang colors or much of anything else.

Charles sighed, looking the place over and entering with a hard light hologram wrapped around him that made him look like a lanky non-descript teenager in a random band shirt and black pants with long shaggy hair. 'Taylor, where are you?' he sent mentally, sending his mind out amongst the rugrats scurrying about the place.

'In World History with Mr. Gladly.' Taylor sent a mental map of the school with her reply.

Charles kept up a mental SEP field as he wandered the school, following her mental map. 'So, where would the problem makers be? Also, who causes the most crap and lets everyone down? Because really, this place needs shaking up.'

'Sophia causes issues, the principal and Mr. Gladly ignored me being bullied, he walked right by. Most of the people with gang colors are problems as well.' Taylor sent back.

Charles walked along and planted subtle mental triggers for the gang members to distance themselves from their gangs safely and share any important information with either the Police or the PRT depending on who was involved, also planting mental triggers to make the teachers actually do their damn jobs and work to protect their students and teach them well.

For Mr. Gladly and the Principle he planted the recurring nightmares he'd thought up; giving each Taylor's memory of being locked in the locker full of used feminine products to replay every night for a week while enhancing the feeling of helplessness and despair she'd felt while locked in the locker.

'Where would Emma and her new clique be at this time of day? In class?' Charles asked mentally as he leaned against the wall outside Taylor's classroom. 'Also, have you thought any more about what body modifications you'd like? I was thinking something vaguely elven but definitely feminine.' he sent her an image of herself with a fairly large B-cup breasts and a lithe but curvaceous body with no glasses and a luxurious mane of hair stretched out in an innocently sexy pose draped over a divan in a Romanesque area.

'Why are you sending me this in class?' Taylor asked as she shielded her face with her textbook, blushing furiously. 'I thought you were going to be cleaning up the school not teasing me?'

'I already did a good portion of the cleanup; only Emma, Sophia and her other friend left… I set the gang members up to break gang ties safely and report the gang stuff to the Police or PRT, the teachers to actually be inclined to do their damn jobs and enforce the rules; I also set up an appropriately poetic revenge for you vs. the main problems on staff which I've already told you about. So I'm basically killing time.' Charles replied, sending her a mental grin.

'Teachers doing their jobs would be nice. Madison is in class with me and Emma is in French across the hall. The elf girl might work as an alternate identity but either way I want the glasses gone.'

'Sure, I can fix your eyes easily enough… No opinion on the rest?' Charles teased her playfully as he sent out feelers toward Madison to check out her reasons for bullying people to see if it's just Sophia's influence or what.

'Maybe just make sure that I end up with decent sized breasts eventually?'

Charles nodded, 'I'll check you out to see what genetics has to say beforehand.' He then set a daisy chain of Taylor's memories of the bullying and how she felt each time to play in a random order in Madison's dreams as she slept for the next week, culminating with the terror of being stuffed in the locker full of used feminine products and tweaked her impulses to play pranks to where she wasn't inclined to deal out mean spirited pranks to girls lower in the social hierarchy.

'I've dealt with Madison … poetic justice can be a bitch and I'm being one more mean bastard today.' Charles sighed and massaged the bridge of his nose. 'I think I'm gonna have to find someone or something to cuddle after this.'

Taylor hid behind her book as her blush got worse. 'Thanks for helping.'

'You're welcome; high school is bad enough without being tormented.' Charles replied as he moved to Emma's mind and gently began going through her memories to see what the hell was up with her and why she was tormenting Taylor in the first place. 'Shit … hmmmph … well, I had hoped Emma had a good reason for the crazy but it turns out more or less she just had a mental break and decided to torment you because she thought you were a weakness she had to get rid of? Teenage girls are crazy illogical creatures.'

'Hey!' Taylor huffed mentally, 'Can you get her to go get help?'

'Yeah, I can put that as a mental suggestion and make sure she does it… I'll make sure she doesn't tell any of your secrets anymore and won't torment you also.' Charles proceeded to do so and gave Emma some minor mental therapy; he wasn't exactly sure how to fix anything so giving her a compulsion to go to a shrink who was trained to deal with teenage girls and attempted rape was the best he could do. He also set up a clip show of just how she'd made her onetime best friend feel to play over her dreams for the next week as well as setting it up for her to experience EXACTLY how Taylor felt in that locker aside from the Trigger part of the event.

'Now to deal with Sophia…' Charles pulled out a cigar and lit it, puffing it thoughtfully behind his SEP field as he relaxed with his back against the wall as he reached out for Sophia's mind and took a deep drag off his cigar before carefully going through her memories and looking for the cause of her damage and worked diligently to fix the problems he found inside her mind. 'Shit, when she triggered it really screwed her up. Her mom's emotionally abusive ex-boyfriend didn't help.'

Taylor asked, 'Do you think it would help to have Mist fix her powers?'

'Sure as hell wouldn't hurt; I'm going to put in a compulsion for her to come meet us at the diner we like going to so he can. I'm healing the mental damage as much as I can; and I can do a LOT… But with the fact it was her shard doing most of the damage instead of just being a mean spirited bitch from the outset how do you want me to handle this? You were the victim here.'

'Erase her mind for the last two years? Hell I don't know, maybe just the bad parts… but that might just be the anger talking.'

'Well, I've been implanting how you felt and making people relive what they did to you from your point of view as punishment for a week living through it as the victim in their dreams… but after she was already emotionally abused and the fact it was her shard causing it… I'm not sure she deserves it and it might do a LOT of damage.' Charles also implanted a compulsion for her to see a shrink for abused teens and come to the diner the team frequented so Mist could fix her powers/the shard.

'Yeah, maybe just fix the shard and get her to a shrink. That should help, I'll be happy if she stays away from me.'

'Okay, I'm done… just sitting in the hallway smoking a cigar.' Charles chuckled.

'Thanks.' Taylor was just hoping that this would help at least until she could test out of school.

~#~Scene Break~#~

Mist looked at the tall man with dragon tattoos up his arms and neck that was wearing a mask. "I'm guessing you're Lung?"

Lung sneered, "You're a dead man walking for killing Oni Lee."

"The idiot blew himself up, I mean sure he had a little help but he shouldn't have been playing with explosives."

Bakuda sneered, "I'm going to enjoy blowing you up."

Mist gestured and pinned Bakuda's arms and cut off her feet with his psychokinesis as he couldn't remember which foot had the trigger devices for her bombs. "Sorry, we're not playing the hostage game."

Bakuda screamed in agony as the pain hit her.

Lung jumped at the unknown cape only to find himself in the air. "I'll kill you."

"Not in this life.' Mist ignored the collection of gang members shooting at him as he reached out and pulled Lung's power out of him. He examined it. "That's interesting and rather useless in the grand scheme of things. I wonder if I can combine these into something useful." He pushed the two powers together and tweaked things so that when someone teleported they could leave behind a flaming clone if they wanted. "That's not as useful as I'd have liked but at least it takes up less space." He walked over and touched Bakuda's hand and sealed her ankles so that she wouldn't bleed to death. "You don't need to be a Tinker." He reached out and stole her power.

Velocity stared at the scene of a bunch of gang members shooting at a cape that was telekinetically holding Bakuda and Lung in the air. "Well shit, so much for a quiet patrol." He grabbed his radio and called in the attack. "We've got an unknown cape fighting Lung or I should say beating him…"

The PRT dispatcher asked, "Can you repeat that? It sounded like you said Lung was losing?"

"The cape is wearing a monkey mask and he's got Lung incapacitated for now… he's at least bullet proof as a group of gang members are trying to vent his insides and he doesn't seem to care."

"I'm sending backup to your location."

Velocity called out, "Do you need any assistance?"

Mist looked over at the cape, "You could help me tie the rest of the gang members up as they don't seem to understand that shooting me isn't doing anything other than annoying me."

One of the gang members shouted, "Shoot him in the eyes!"

Mist backhanded the gang member that had suggested shooting him in the eyes with his psychokinesis which sent the gang member unconscious. "Let's not. Toss down your weapons or I rip them out of your hands and stop caring about injuring you." He sighed when rather than give up they started running. "Hey, that's not… damn it." He reached out and grabbed the fleeing gang members and dragged them kicking and screaming back to the site of the confrontation. "Just zip tie them." He started ripping weapons out of their hands and lightly clubbing people over the head. "Fuck maybe he's right, this world is starting to annoy me."

Velocity moved forward and started tying people up as quickly as he could.

Mist waited until the gang members were tied up before he turned to look at Velocity. He used his psychokinesis to play havoc with his voice. "They attacked me, I defended myself. It's a clear cut case of self defense."

Velocity looked at the bloody sign that was laying on the ground near the cape that insulted Lung. "And the sign? Most people would consider that baiting..."

"Freedom of speech."

"I don't suppose I can talk you into coming back with me to file some paperwork?"

Mist briefly considered stuffing the extra powers in the hero then decided that he had other uses for them. "Nah. I'd rather avoid the attention. Feel free to claim responsibility to taking down Lung, Bakuda and even Oni Lee if you want though mostly that one was him blowing himself up when he couldn't kill me. I'll see you around though." Mist smirked as he flew up into the air then headed back toward the docks where he'd stashed another set of clothing. 'I'll have to burn the mask and my clothes but that's a small price to pay for cutting off the head of the ABB.'

~#~Scene Break~#~

Charles sat in the darkened lair, throwing a ball at the wall and catching it as he smoked a cigar.

Mist walked through the door, "Cross off the ABB leadership and who likes bombs, teleportation and fire?"

"Bombs are fun; I dealt with teen drama… Emma has a borked head and I sent her to a shrink, Sophia's power borked her head because it was coupled with emotional abuse from her mom's ex-boyfriend so I did the Professor X thing and healed what I could and sent her for counseling for the rest. I delivered the poetic justice thing to everyone but Sophia because she honestly couldn't help being a psycho with her shard and emotional abuse on top of it. I feel like a bastard."

"I'll have to see if I can fix her power at some point. If not we'll rip it out and start over with something saner. Welcome to the joys of being a telepath. It probably helps explain why Professor X didn't just rewrite people's brains to be less annoying."

"Bah, he didn't use his powers because if he did it wouldn't make good comic books." Charles snorted. "I think I'm gonna track Noelle down, I feel dirty and want cuddles. Then again I could buy a puppy with less effort."

"Or make a monstrous pet." Mist chuckled, "That reminds me, I'm thinking of making a couple of gremlins with rat brains that Skitter can use as scouts."

Charles shook his head, "And this sounds cuddly to you?"

"Some of the gremlins were cute… wait that was the cartoon trolls wasn't it?"

Selena called out from the kitchen, "I vote purple hair."

Mist pulled Bakuda's tinker shard out of his pocket and checked it over for mental issues a third time then held it out, "Bombs? I guess I could always give the bomb shard to Tattletale or Regent… okay not Regent."

"Sure." Charles had barely spoken before Mist tossed the Tinker orb at him.

Mist grinned, "Now I just have to figure out what to do with the combination of Lung and Oni Lee's powers, any suggestions?"

"Ummm… that's one hell of a combination - and I'm not really sure." Charles replied, "What does the combined shard do? I can store it for you until we find someone."

"Allows teleportation and lets you leave a temporary flaming copy of yourself behind. The teleportation isn't great as it's line of sight but the flaming copies should be amusing. If you don't want it I can find a random girl that would probably want to be a cape."

Charles shrugged, "I offered to store it for you. I'm not sure if I want to be a teleporting fire bomber personally so you could have time to find someone more stable than a random teenage girl. I've been in teenage girls heads all afternoon; ninety percent of them are fucking nuts and make no sense!"

Selena asked, "Are you saying that I'm nuts?"

"All women are nuts! It's just you're so cute and cuddly that makes up for it."

"He's got a point." Mist laughed as he held out the power. "Go ahead and store it while I look for a stable person to give it to."

Charles took the power and shunted it into his container power.

Selena poked her head out of the kitchen and stuck her tongue out then went back to cooking.

Mist shrugged, "I might as well hit the Merchants while I'm thinking about it. I should be able to find them with my powers."

"Want me to build you a disguise before you go?" Charles asked curiously. "Or want me to come with you?"

"Either way, with you along we can just sneak in, steal their powers and money, loot their accounts and leave without a fight. My method of dealing with the ABB caused some waves…"

Selena asked, "What did you do?"

Mist said, "I might have walked about their territory with a sign that said Lung Eats Monkey Shit…"

Selena stepped out of the kitchen and looked at Mist dubiously, "You what?"

"It was the quickest way I knew of to flush out the leadership."

"This is what happens when he wanders off by himself." Charles pointed at her with his cigar.

Selena nodded, "We have a rule in the game, no leaving his mage alone for more than a day to cause mischief. It never ends well."

"Hey, those ogres were asking for it." Mist replied.

"I think we may need to set up a babysitting schedule." Charles nodded sagely.

Selena laughed as she went back to cooking.

Mist shrugged, "We'll just have to find some cute girls to keep me sidetracked. I wouldn't mind having a costume for when you're not around but I'm happy to have the help taking out Skidmark and Squealer."

"Okay." Charles stood up and encased them both in their hard light costumes.

Selena called out, "Have fun storming the castle!"

"I vote we fix Squealer and bring her back with us."

Mist asked, "Why?"

"You did say you wanted a girl to keep you occupied." Charles smirked.

Mist snorted, "Hell no, she's a drug addict, probably has I'm not even sure how many diseases and has a piece of shit scum for a boyfriend which means her taste in men sucks shit."

"We can fix all that…"

"If you want to try fixing her head and recruiting her… I'm sure we could use her at the other base."

"Hmmm, I guess. We'll just have to see." Charles replied, puffing on his cigar.

"That works. Regent would probably be a good choice to give her ability to. It would drive him nuts having a power that he can't be lazy with and I mean who doesn't want a sweet ride?"

Charles chuckled, "I like sweet rides … especially when they're about yay tall, have nice breasts and a great rump… long hair…"

"Well you have that body shaping power and telepathy so you can probably make it work."

"I'm not that far gone; I'm not going to custom make myself a girlfriend including programming her brain. Girls are much more fun when they're a little nuts, instead of being brain dead sex slaves."

Mist laughed, "Yes, yes they are."

"I'm not claiming I won't do bodywork; especially if the girl asks me to but unless she has mental issues she wants or needs fixed to function I'd rather not go there. Too much temptation to tweak things and if you do that to people you're having sex with you become Willow from late season Buffy." Charles intoned and puffed his cigar.

Mist rolled his eyes, "She went off the deep end. I blame Buffy. Let's go crack some heads and make some money."

"I blame Crack Head Joss myself. What do you think Selena?" He called into the kitchen as he walked over to join Mist.

"I think it was a crime to kill off Tara and she should have had a foursome with Dawn, Xander and Willow but I can't see the network people letting that slide. I can't even remember any horrible tentacle sex jokes on a show with demons. Is that evil enough for you?"

"You're evil." Mist shook his head as he headed for the stairs. He muttered, "That's why she doesn't get the bomb power…"

Charles chuckled and walked with Mist out of the hidden lair. "I can agree with that … maybe I should make her a cute and fluffy tentacle monster. I mean, if she's into that..."

"That could be fun and horrifying."

"Bet I could make millions making tentacle monsters to use in Japanese porn."

"Probably, Nilbog made monsters that spawned monsters so it probably wouldn't be that hard to set something up or I could give a person a power that conjured them." Mist shook his head, "Yeah, I'm losing it."

"I thought so years ago." Charles replied.

~#~Scene Break~#~

Mist was actually a bit disgusted with how easy it was to sneak into the Merchant's base using his ability to sense powers to find it and Charles' stealth and telepathy to get past the guards. The worst part was looking at the overweight Tinker and the monkey faced drug addict that didn't bother to wear anything to bed. Mist reached out and stole Skidmark and Squealers powers and then held the powers out to Charles. He whispered, "That was way too easy."

Charles took the powers and stuffed them into the power locker. 'Yeah, and what do you want to do now? Rob the safe?'

Mist glanced around at the piles of money that weren't even in a safe. "I would if they had one. Should we zip tie them to the bed and call the cops?"

"Sounds good… if they had one…" Charles used his mental powers to put them all to sleep and then headed around to start bagging up money in the sports bag he'd kept from their earlier heist.

Mist started floating stacks of money over to Charles to put away.

"You know, if I wanted to be cruel and unusual I'd have them all start having sex before I called the cops … but that would be cruel to the cops and to us."

"Nah you could put it on a delay, then it's just cruel to the cops." Mist sighed, "All things considered the cops have a tough job in the city so we probably shouldn't add to it. Actually, I have a nasty idea." Mist walked over and touched Squealer's hand with his finger and sorted through all of the toxins in Squealer's body and made her immune to them using his shaper power and fixed the damage they had already done to her. "There, I made it so she's immune to the drugs that were in her system which was just about all of them."

"That's pretty cruel…" Charles reached over and undid her psychological addiction, there was no need to torture non-combatants and then using his TK collected all the money that would fit in the bags they had. "Lets get out of here."

"Sounds good to me. Do we want to break some legs and track down some of the rest of the idiots selling girls here or do you want to leave that for the cops? Because…" He trailed off as everything glass in the room shattered explosively. "Fuck!"

Charles focused and made it so no one could see them. 'Telepathy and mental invisibility time, no idea what the fuck is going on so … lets find the slave runners and deal with them; the girls probably need more healing than the cops can give unless Panacea is volunteering for rape and slavery victims this week.'

'I'm guessing the glass shattering means the Slaughterhouse Nine is in town but you're right we should finish up here.'

'In less than three days since you got here? At this point they should be somewhere on the other side of the country from what I can remember.'

Mist grumbled, 'Fuck if I know what the hell happened. Maybe the same fucker that brought me here called them.'

Charles sent his mental senses floating around to see what's going on and where the enemies were. Shatterbird was flying above the city. Mannequin was creeping around the city in the docks. Jack was about three hundred yards away with Bonesaw, Hatchet Face and Crawler.


	5. Chapter 5

Charles frowned then grinned wickedly as he made Shatterbird forget how to fly right above the heads of Bonesaw, Hatchet Face and Crawler. He then made the others forget they had colons and urinary sphincters to sow chaos among them.

Shatterbird screamed as she fell out of the sky plummeting the three hundred feet to the ground to crash into the ground narrowly missing Bonesaw who managed to dodge at the last second. Jack spun around and slashed with his knife and cut through several tents the rank and file Merchants were using. "What the hell?" He scowled as he realized that he had pissed himself. "I'm going to fucking enjoy killing you!"

Bonesaw grabbed the Siberian's hand as she looked around for the person responsible for killing Shatterbird. "I'll fix her…"

Charles chuckled darkly to himself and checked to see if he could get into Hatchet Face's mind. He then mentally took over the mass murderer and used his abilities to negate Crawler's abilities and went to town on Crawler using his hatchets.

Jack turned and stared at Hatchet Face, "What the hell?"

"He was looking at me funny!"

Mist snorted as he watched Hatchet Face do his best to kill Crawler while Crawler tried to run. Mist reached out and stole Crawler and Hatchet Face's power. Which caused Crawler to turn back into a human right as Hachet Face brought his axe down on his head. 'That worked surprisingly well.'

'Make sure and grab Hatchet Face's powers before the rest of them kill him off.' Charles said as he used Hatchet Face to cut Crawler's limbs off to keep him from running and then behead him and then turned him to rush Jack.

Jack used his blade to cut off Hatchet Face's head. "Sorry but that's unacceptable." He stepped over and touched Siberian's arm. "Let's level the place."

Charles' evil grin vanished as he realized he couldn't use Bonesaw to work on Jack as the next stage of his plan and instead followed the link from Siberian's mind back to William Manton and used him to break Jack … thoroughly, by throwing him into a brick wall at full strength and speed. He then had the Siberian grab Bonesaw fairly gently and bind her thoroughly.

Bonesaw blinked, "Hey! This isn't funny. Fiddlesticks."

Mist reached out and stole Jack's power and destroyed it so that no one else ended up with it.

"By the way, I'm going to want William Manton's ability." Charles said conversationally as the Siberian walked in with Bonesaw wrapped up firmly so she couldn't use her powers. 'Bonesaw is cute but I think I'm going to have to do hefty psychic surgery unless you want to give her powers to someone else.'

"Both, we can probably give her some other type of Tinker powers to make up for it but her ability is creepy as hell. Yeah, Manton's powers are insane and useful."

"I have no idea if I'll be able to do this trick and take over Mannequin … he's mostly made of glass now from what I can tell and he's done some weird shit to his organs." Charles continued conversationally as he had William Manton come to join them, walking over and putting Bonesaw to sleep. "Poor kid is going to need a hell of a lot of work; no idea how long it'll take me to fix whatever fucked her up."

Mist walked over, tapped Bonesaw's nose and removed all her modifications and hidden cyberware. "No plagues for you." He pulled her power out and looked it over. "Huh, it's actually not her power that screwed her up or well it was in that it let Jack mess with her but it's not actually broken."

"I have no idea what you'd have to do to turn a cute 14 year old kid into Bonesaw, and we don't have time for me to get into the psychic surgery business right now. The police or the PRT or someone is probably on their way right now." Charles muttered.

Mist altered Bonesaw's appearance slightly and turned her hair brown rather than blond. "This is a mess."

"Yeah, it's a major fucking mess. Just toss me the powers and I'll store them until we have time to fuck around with them." Charles said as he looked around.

Mist handed him the power orbs he'd collected. "Sadly the bounties are too much to just walk away from. I'm pretty sure that Burnscar is still out there."

"Mannequin is down near the docks. William Manton aka the Siberian is on his way…"

"As long as Jack is dead, I'm happy."

"I used the Siberian to break his neck and probably crush his skull… Full power throw into the corner of a brick building." Charles replied.

"It worked, I didn't want to check to see if I was actually immune to the Siberian."

"Me either … or Hatchet Face." Charles said as he sat down in a chair and propped his feet up. "This is gonna be LOUD and annoying."

"Yeah but they're worth a couple million each."

"Why don't we go free girls and get them out of slavery while we wait on the PRT then…" Charles said as he had the Siberian go gather the bodies of the Slaughterhouse 9 and stack them out of the way.

"That works for me. I'll guard the bodies."

Charles sighed and nodded, using his mind powers to find the enslaved girls and wandering in that direction after making sure they were each in their Sith Impersonator garb.

"I'll grab a dead guy and make him look like Bonesaw."

"Sure, it's better than condemning a 14 year old tortured kid to the Birdcage." Charles replied.

"Exactly." Mist picked up one of the random Merchants that Jack had killed and worked on altering him to pass as Bonesaw in appearance and in blood.

~#~Scene Break~#~

Armsmaster stared in shock as the Siberian vanished as one of the Sith Impersonators pulled Manton's power out of him. "You're going to have to come back to base and fill out paperwork."

Mist sighed, "While I would never actually threaten a member of the Protectorate, we did just take out most of the Slaughterhouse 9. So, if you're considering not paying us or dissecting us, I am sure the media would be vastly displeased." He turned and tossed Manton's power at Charles. "Here."

Charles reached up a hand and grabbed the ball of light, letting the PRT squad watch as it flowed into him as he wandered around healing the physical damage on a bunch of nearly nude and nude girls. The former Bonesaw tucked in amongst them. "Tip your waitress; we're here all week."

Assault could barely hold in his snickers.

Armsmaster asked, "What did you do?"

"I gave him Manton's power which means that he'll be able to make a Siberian-like projection. Don't worry she shouldn't be insane, that was Manton's shtick."

Charles rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Hmmm, wonder if she could use my powers?"

Armsmaster tapped his helmet when the damned thing said he was telling the truth. "You're a Trump."

Charles shrugged, "Technically I suppose we both are."

Mist smirked, "I can transfer powers between people and in a lot of cases fix them so they aren't as broken."

Armsmaster went white as his equipment said they were both telling the truth as the blood drained from his face.

Battery said as innocently as she could while trying not to laugh, "It was in the report sir."

Assault finally lost it and started laughing.

Armsmaster pulled himself together enough to ask, "How many of the Slaughterhouse 9 powers did you acquire?"

Mist shrugged, "We tossed Jack's; it's good for nothing but killing lots of people… Shatterbird died with hers… Crawler's power is amusing, Hachet Face's power might be useful to give to someone..."

Charles continued when Mist trailed off, "Bonesaw's power died with her… Mannequin isn't here, and neither is Burnscar. So most of the Slaughterhouse 9's powers are gone forever. We only left the bodies for identification because there is such a large reward on them and we could really use the money. By the way, was there a bounty on Hookwolf?"

Armsmaster scowled as his lie detector gave him a couple of error messages as he couldn't get a good enough read on things with their costumes. "The bounty on Hookwolf isn't impressive compared to the bounty on the Nine."

Charles shrugged, "We captured him though … plus I want to start a no-kill animal shelter … and a clinic for helping victims of these idiots." Charles kicked one of the dead Merchants hard in the crotch as he continued moving along the line healing the various girls.

Armsmaster scowled behind his helmet, "Did you kill any of the Merchants?"

"Nope, that was all on Jack - as you can see from the blade wounds." Charles replied, "I just knocked them unconscious."

"But we did capture Skidmark and Squealer. They're tied up in the house." Mist pointed toward the house where they had left Skidmark and Squealer tied up.

Assault asked, "Do they still have their powers?"

Mist snorted, "They were villains; they sold drugs to children. Officially I have no idea how they lost their powers."

Assault couldn't hold his snickers in anymore and burst out laughing, leaning against a building.

Battery asked, "What are you going to do with the Slaughterhouse Nine's powers?"

Mist asked, "I'll probably give them to a hero or someone that wants to be a hero. I mean the bounties should keep me from having to sell powers to questionable people."

"In the meantime I'll store them until we can find someone trustworthy." Charles shrugged.

Armsmaster asked, "What's the range on your power?"

Mist raised an eyebrow, "I think I'll decline to answer that."

"Do you have other powers?"

"Yeah, again, none of your business." Mist was glad that his hard light mask covered his face so Armsmaster couldn't see his smirk.

Charles snickered and kept working while Mist tweaked Armsmaster's nose.

Armsmaster looked at Assault, "Assault grab Skidmark and Squealer." He glanced at Charles, "Walk me through what happened again."

"Okay, no problem… We got information that the Merchants were kidnapping girls and had them locked up in the building back there." Charles pointed back at it, "We then proceeded to come down here and knock them out…" Charles held up a canister from one of his chemical grenades. "Tinker sleep gas helped with that. While we were working on trying to find the girls to get them out of cages the Slaughterhouse 9 showed up and announced themselves by shattering all the glass in an umpteen block radius…"

Battery asked, "How the hell did you kill Crawler?"

"LSD bomb with a DMSO base… Hatchet Face killed Crawler - after I dosed them all." Charles replied.

Armsmaster said, "That should save some money on bounties as he can't collect."

"Sure, except I was directly responsible for the action he took…" Charles replied with a shrug, pulling out a charged LSD grenade.

Battery shook her head, "Armsmaster, just toss it up the chain of command and don't piss off the guy that can steal powers."

Mist smirked, "Actually that's me and I just trade them, I don't get to actually keep them. I mean seriously how screwed up is that? I get to make everyone else stronger but I can't boost myself."

"With the skin contact LSD Shatterbird forgot how to fly or decided down was up or something…" Charles continued, "Jack turned on Bonesaw and Hatchet Face… and the Siberian threw him into a wall trying to knock him out; we noticed Manton and he figured out that Manton's power was the Siberian." Charles shrugged. "We stopped him from using the Siberian on us until you got here then we took the Siberian away from Manton."

Armsmaster asked, "How?"

Mist replied, "He can't make himself immune to damage with the Siberian so he grabbed him by the throat with telekinesis and told him that he'd kill him if the Siberian came after us. Manton decided that the Birdcage was better than death."

"Plus I did this to the Siberian anyway." Charles waved a hand at Armsmaster and held him upside down ten feet in the air. "You don't want me to finish the move. Evidently the Siberian can't throw up."

Battery snickered. "That's how he stopped Hookwolf."

"It's amazing how much less of a problem brutes are when they have no leverage."

"Or when they're upside down and spinning like an express wagon wheel." Charles smirked.

Armsmaster scowled, "Put me down."

Charles flipped Armsmaster right side up and set him down.

Assault walked out dragging Skidmark and Squealer out wrapped in a sheet. "You didn't tell me that they were naked, bastard."

Charles turned and raised an eyebrow at Mist. "I thought they were asleep? How did they get naked?"

"They started that way, wasn't my fault."

"Oh, they must have been having sex when I tossed the sleep grenade in then. Sorry bro." Charles patted Assault on the shoulder. "Steak and lobster on me."

Battery laughed, "Sure."

Armsmaster scowled, "There is still the matter of the paperwork that needs to be filed."

"Sure, we can do that … no problem … other than boredom. Then we go somewhere that serves good beer, steak and lobster… Even you if you want." Charles smirked at Armsmaster and stretched hard.

Armsmaster said, "Thanks but I'll be on the phone or patrolling all night looking for the rest of them."

"Oh… alright then. I think they said something about Mannequin being down at the docks somewhere. But of course they were all tripping balls at the time." Charles replied with a shrug.

Mist shrugged, "We'll send them your way if we find the rest of them."

Armsmaster looked at Assault as the PRT van showed up, "You can deal with this, I'm going to go check the docks."

Assault shrugged, "No problem." He waited for Armsmaster to leave before he asked, "So, was he actually at the docks?"

"Last we heard? I mean they were tripping balls at the time but it was mentioned. Of course it took you guys a while to get here." Charles shrugged. "But it's a lead and it got the buzzkill to leave."

Assault laughed, "I'm looking forward to hearing the real story some day. Let's go get things settled with the bounties."

Charles picked up Bonesaw gently and used TK to lift the other girls who couldn't walk for one reason or other. "Huh, I think we'll need another van. Plus something for the bodies."

"I'll call it in, there is a lot of damage all over the city with Shatterbird screaming."

"Hmmm, then is it alright if I call in some taxis or something to get these girls to the hospital?"

"If you can get them here? Go for it."

Charles shrugged and picked up a cellphone from one of the disabled Merchants and called a cab company, putting it on speaker phone. "Hi, Yellow Cab? Look there's a bunch of damage down here from Shatterbird and a Merchants pleasure house where they were holding kidnapped girls… Could you get a few police cars and a fleet of cabs to this address? There's ten thousand dollars in it for you, and a whole lot of girls need to go to the hospital."

"10,000 dollars?" The dispatcher asked in surprise.

"Yeah, a one and four zeroes. You heard me right." Charles replied.

"That shouldn't be a problem. Where are you?"

Charles gave him the address as he massaged Bonesaw's scalp and hung up after the cab operator said they'd be there in a bit.

Mist looked at Assault, "Do you need both of us to come with you?"

Assault figured there wasn't a chance in the world of him being able to stop the team that had taken out most of the Slaughterhouse Nine and it wasn't like they couldn't send some people with them to the hospital to keep an eye on things. "I'll send some people to help. Armsmaster will just have to deal."

Battery said, "I'll go with the girls."

"Good luck."

~#~Scene Break~#~

Mist grumbled slightly as he listened to Piggot's complaints about his refusal to detail his powers or unmask. Apparently giving people millions of dollars of cash was actually a problem.

Charles was playing Solitaire on a captured phone and talking to Mist telepathically. 'This woman sure does know how to go on and on.'

'Yes she does.' Mist looked at the Director, "Everyone we killed had a kill order on them. Even if most of them turned on each other it was thanks to our device that they did. We contained things as best we could once the Nine got there."

"And once a cape unmasks generally it ends in bad things. Didn't one of that family of capes get killed in their regular identity afterward? Sorry lady, but even if I trusted YOU we still wouldn't trust the people you work for. Bureaucracy is full of leaks whether it's supposed to be or not. Now, if I heal you will you just give us the damn money and let us get on with our evening?" Charles asked curiously.

"That wasn't in the report."

"Armsmaster watched me heal a whole bunch of girls tonight. So did Battery and Assault, my guess is they're still cleaning up the mess instead of filing reports at the moment. Or Battery is still at the hospital comforting traumatized girls." Charles shrugged.

"Either way, we'd like our money." Mist stated firmly.

"We don't have nearly that much in cash on hand." Piggot replied.

"Call a bank and get some bearer bonds in the morning?" Charles shrugged.

"I'm not going to let a parahuman that I'm not sure about touch me."

Mist scowled, "Do you realize how many Masters just need line of sight rather than touch? I mean seriously, Masters and Strangers are almost all line of sight fuckers."

"Then have Panacea heal you; I really don't mind. I was just making an offer in hopes it'd help instead of you citing bureaucracy and us talking circles around you." Charles shrugged.

"I'll put in the request to my superiors. I'd rather you joined the Protectorate."

"Not happening. I don't trust the people behind the Protectorate." Charles said firmly, continuing to play solitaire on the phone.

"Then we have nothing further to discuss."

"So in other words you refuse to honor the bounty?" Charles asked with a raised eyebrow as he set the phone down.

"You can claim the bounty once we prove that it's legitimate. It might take a couple of days. Feel to pick up the bounty on Hookwolf on the way out."

Charles shrugged. "Fine by me." he said as he stood up. "Just keep in mind we did stop the Slaughterhouse 9." He smiled evilly as he walked out of Piggot's office.

Mist followed with a scowl on his face.

~#~Scene Break~#~

"Well, that was a bust… I'll wager they try to drag out paying us for weeks. Or until we tell the media." Charles said as he ran his fingers through Bonesaw's hair and worked on her mind, sitting on their couch in the lair.

"We'll get Tattletale to handle the media aspect of it if it comes down to that."

"I bet they're gonna be confused as shit when they look at the security video and see that I had a runt in my arms the whole time we were in there." Charles snickered.

"Most likely. It will probably just freak them out more."

"Might make them pay us faster when they realize that none of them even thought about it the whole time." Charles grinned wickedly.

Mist shrugged, "Either that or they'll be nice and have someone like Eidolon there when they pay us."

"If they piss us off I'm more powerful than him anyway." Charles replied with a shrug. "Plus I have more LSD grenades … and I took more drugs to make neat stuff with from the Merchants tonight."

Mist laughed, "I'm looking forward to stealing Eidolon's powers and giving them to someone that doesn't have a thousand and five mental health problems. I have a feeling that Cauldron are going to be rather pissed at us."

"Probably; I figure that'll become your new four point flaw." Charles replied with a shrug.

"I'm not sure it works like that but maybe. Either way, they shouldn't be able to track us though I think acquiring teleportation powers might be a good idea."

Charles shrugged and nodded. "Selena should be able to make a gizmo, or you have a template for teleportation now and you could give it to us and use a gizmo yourself… or something."

"True. I'm still a little annoyed that we didn't run into Dauntless, I was really hoping to figure out how the hell he enchants his items."

"Were you gonna steal his powers or something?" Charles asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Nah just copy. The guy is a decent hero as far as I know but having boosted equipment would be nice. Then again it probably only works for him so it wouldn't help me."

"Selena or I could boost the stuff for you if you gave us a copy… Maybe by making another gizmo to alter the gear beforehand so it would work for you." Charles shrugged as he continued to work on Bonesaw's mind. "Do you know this cutie's real name? I haven't found it in her mind and it wasn't one of the random bits that stuck."

"Actually a portable portal generator would work nicely. Her name is Riley."

"Hmmmph… Jack was a sadistic bastard, I'm glad I killed him…" Charles muttered. "I may have to wipe Riley's mind and start over, making her resurrect her family and killing them over and over left so much trauma her mind literally shattered and putting the little pieces back together isn't working very well."

"That might be for the best. I have an idea about how to help with that. Victor, one of the Empire capes has a power that steals skills or copies and steals them. If we can grab him then I can probably tweak it so that it works by copying skills rather than stealing them. Then we send her around a college for skills."

"Yeah, but I still need to build her a personality and some memories… Gleh... hell I can implant skills that I know as far as that goes. I'm bloody Professor Xavier here." Charles muttered.

"In that case, I'll toss the skill power your way. I've got 10 slots for powers today, I might as well use a couple for teleportation."

"Fuck it… I had a loving family and a great many aunts and uncles… I'll put together some memories and make her my adopted little sister or something." Charles growled as he put his fist through the coffee table. "I've been working on this for hours already and making fuck all for progress."

"That works."

Charles reluctantly wiped Riley's mind after copying her memories and medical knowledge into a locked mental room in his mind and went to work; rolling a cigar around between his teeth as he generated her a happy childhood and adolescence surrounded by the whole clan of relatives he called his own back home.

"I'm going to see if I can fix the pyromaniac that's running around." Mist headed toward the door.

Selena snorted, "Hell no. The last time you ran off without me you got into trouble. I need a costume."

Charles glanced up from his task. "What do you want? Sith Impersonators again?"

"Yeah, we might as well unless you have a better idea?" Selena asked.

"Nope, might as well use the ones the PRT already knows about so if you find him you can claim the reward. He's a member of Slaughterhouse 9 after all." Charles replied and generated their disguises.

"She - but mostly because her power causes mental issues. The more she uses it the more unstable she gets. Let's go, I have a feeling I know where to find her."

Selena asked, "Where is that?"

"A parahuman run club which was on the list anyways because I need to fix Labyrinth's power so that she's not screwed up."

Selena glanced at Bonesaw and Charles, "Let's go."

Charles nodded to the two and got back to work, using his healing powers to undo the imprinted long term memories in her brain as well as his telepathy to give Riley a clean slate before implanting the new ones.

~#~Scene Break~#~

Mist stretched out his awareness of powers, "A flame teleporter can't be that common. When you combine it with control of fire, about three blocks to the left of us."

Selena said, "Flight?"

"We might as well, it looks damn impressive and I want people to notice this so they can't sweep things under the rug when we capture her."

"You're still annoyed about Piggy aren't you?"

"I've got a better idea why various fanfiction authors dislike her. I'm reserving my judgment for a week. If they actually pay up without more hassles then I'll be happy. If they don't then I'm going to reconsider my policy on stealing powers from heroes or randomly making PRT members heroes."

Selena asked, "How is that a bad thing for them?"

"The rules say that the PRT employees can't have powers so if they have them, they basically lose their jobs and have to swap to the Protectorate. Which is sort of a load of shit considering the head of the PRT is Alexandria in her civilian disguise. Talk about do what I say and not what I do."

"I'm still trying to figure out if this world is more or less screwed up than Marvel."

Mist shrugged, "Marvel has villains that won't stay dead and prisons that won't hold them. On the upside Marvel doesn't have Endbringers running around destroying cities."

"That's true."

"Game faces, we're almost here." Mist grinned as he flew down to the street where a group of PRT were trying to deal with a flame wielding girl that could teleport. "Hello." Mist blinked as a swath a fire washed over him. "Okay, let's try something here…" He reached out and stole her power from her which caused her to scream when the fire she was jumping for suddenly burned her and the PRT soldiers could actually hit her. "Well shit that didn't work as planned…"

Mist sighed as the PRT took the chance and gunned the villain down. "Score one for the PRT." He checked her power and fixed the link to the user's emotions.

Selena winced as she watched the villain get turned into Swiss cheese by the PRT force. "I'm suddenly glad that I've got enhanced durability."

"Yep, do you want her ability?"

"Is it going to drive me insane?"

"Nah, I fixed that. Besides, you're already insane."

"Sure, teleportation via fire could be useful."

Mist tossed the power at her then looked at the PRT, "We're just trying to help."

One of the PRT that had seen what happened to Hookwolf spoke up before anyone said something stupid, "Thank you for the assist. We'll take your name down for credit."

"You're welcome. Go ahead and stick us down for partial credit." Mist figured tossing the PRT a win would keep the troops happy.

Selena asked, "Now what?"

"Now we go after Mannequin."

PRT officer piped up, "He's already been dealt with."

Mist blinked, "What?"

"Your friend was right; Armsmaster found him down at the docks." The PRT officer shrugged.

Mist laughed, "Good for him, maybe he's not a complete prick."

The PRT officer coughed as he tried not to laugh, "He's a hero but yeah, he's not exactly a people person."

"In that case, we should probably go relax." Mist figured they could swing by Faultline's club and fix the broken Case 53s and Labyrinth. "I feel like having a drink." He flew up a couple of feet off the ground.

"Sure, why not. Vader is going to be busy for a while." Selena smiled at the PRT officer then flew up and followed Mist.

~#~Scene Break~#~

Faultline looked the two Sith Impersonators over, "You're saving that you can fix case 53s?"

Mist glanced away from Faultline and over at the orange skinned teenager that was leaning up against the wall then back to Faultline. "That's what I'm saying. I should also be able to help Labyrinth out as well. I have a feeling that her power causes some of her mental issues."

"Assuming that I believe you and my sources say that your team was responsible for de-powering Hookwolf, what do you want?"

Mist shrugged, "You mean other than helping people that need it? I just turned over more than half of the Slaughterhouse Nine so that I could get their bounties. I'm not all that worried about charging for something that will only take me a couple of minutes to deal with. That said, I've got no real interest in coming back so if you want me to help then this is your shot."

Faultline would have reacted more if her contacts hadn't already informed her that several members of the Nine were dead. She looked at the orange skinned teen. "It's your call if you want to volunteer."

Newter shrugged, "I'm not sure, I sort of like my tail and being able to get people high is useful at points."

Mist snorted, "I can probably give you an off switch which means you could flip back and forth."

"Now that I'm interested in."

Mist pulled his power out which caused Newter's skin to change to a Caucasian color and his tail to shrink and then vanish. "Give me a second to tweak things." He tweaked the powers, destroyed the shard connection and then placed the powers back in Newter. "Try swapping back."

Newter blinked in surprise as his skin changed color back to orange then back. "That's better."

Mist said, "There you go."

Faultline smiled slightly, "Thank you. Can you do anything for his memories?"

"Sadly, not so much but I know guy that might be able to help."

Faultline looked at Newter, "Go get Gregor and Labrinth." She turned back to look at Mist, "Do you know anything about Cauldron?"

Mist asked, "Like the things witches use?"

"It's an organization."

"Never heard of them but I'll keep my eyes out."

Faultline waved it off. "Thanks for the help. Do you have a number I can reach you at in case I run into more case 53s?"

Mist said, "I'm still working on that, maybe once the bounties clear."

Selena said, "We're going to set a up a clinic so I'm sure you'll hear about us. We're also on PHO forum if you need to get in contact with us."

Faultline would have rather had a cell number for them but would take what she could get.


	6. Chapter 6

Selena glanced around after they left Faultline's club, "Do we actually have a plan?"

Mist stretched his arms as they walked down the alley. "Other than make sure I use all of my upgrade orbs a day I don't really have a plan exactly. I've hit most of the dangerous gangs already. The heroes should be able to deal with the Empire on their own and if they can't then we'll see about picking off a couple more capes. I'd rather not give the Protectorate a reason to send all of the heroes elsewhere."

"Does that mean we get to relax and have fun for a bit?"

Mist shrugged, "Sure, at least until more gangs show up to cause problems."

"In that case, I'd like to request teleportation and Panacea's power, maybe another upgrade to my psychokinesis and telepathy while you're at it."

"So that's what four powers?"

"Yep, which leaves you free to give Panacea some type of regeneration, durability and a mind block ability so that she's immune to her sister's aura and other mental control."

Mist sighed, "Considering there was just a city wide disaster, we can probably find her at the hospital. Actually, I can probably give one of the nurses the ability to grant people regeneration which would let her treat everyone with injuries which would spare Panacea a lot of work."

Selena nodded, "That's actually a good idea. In that case, just give me a copy of Panacea's ability. That would leave you with eight or nine nurses able to grant regeneration if we want to go that direction and still give Panacea some type of regeneration."

"I like it." Mist conjured an upgrade orb with Panacea's powers and tossed it to Selena. "There you go. To the Bat hospital." Mist smirked as he flew off toward the hospital.

"Nerd." She snickered as they flew off toward the closest hospital.

~#~Scene Break~#~

A rather attractive nurse in her early twenties asked in surprise, "You can give people powers?"

Mist replied, "I can give you the ability to grant people temporary regeneration or I can give you a copy of Panacea's ability."

"I'd love a copy of her abilities. I have a feeling that both of those abilities would come in handy but I'd like to be a doctor at some point. I know a couple of the girls would be happy with the ability to regenerate people."

"In that case, welcome to the cape business." Mist conjured a sparkly orb with Panacea's power and handed it to the cute nurse. "There you go. I can give people eight more powers today, test your power out then grab eight of your friends?"

The nurse said, "I'll test things out then I'll make some calls."

Mist nodded, "My friend and I can both heal if you want us to help out?"

The nurse nodded, "I'll show you where to start while I grab more nurses and doctors."

"Thanks."

~#~Scene Break~#~

Mist grumbled as he leaned up against the wall of the lounge in the hospital, "I can't physically get tired and I'm exhausted. How the hell are you still even remotely sane?"

Panacea blinked a couple of times as she thought about her answer. She wasn't all that sure she was actually sane but she tried, "Lots of practice and it's not always that bad." She went back to shoveling food into her mouth so that she could get back to work.

Mist sighed, "At least most of the injured were dealt with by the nurses with regeneration, I hope I didn't ruin your gig by increasing the number of healing capes in the city."

Panacea shook her head vigorously, "Maybe now I can take a vacation." She muttered, "Not that Mom would let me."

"You know, your situation would be a lot better if you actually charged for healing."

Panacea shook her head, "That wouldn't be nice…"

Mist shrugged, "Honestly, you have a talent, sure I sort of gave several other people a copy of your talent but you've still got an extremely valuable ability. You've also got the most experience using your ability."

"Not healing people just because they can't pay wouldn't be nice."

Mist shook his head, "I'm not suggesting you don't heal the people that can't pay but even asking for a one hundred dollar donation would probably line your pockets and wouldn't be a burden on most of the people you're healing. Donations are voluntary after all."

"I guess that could work. Maybe after this disaster is over…"

Mist nodded, "People shouldn't expect you to run yourself ragged to heal others. You're not a saint and people shouldn't expect you to be. Doctors are paid a lot of money for what they do and they have barely a fraction of your talent."

"It's a power…"

"So is athletic ability. I mean sure they work on it but professional athletes have abilities that most people couldn't get even if they put in the same amount of time. Smart people lucked into it. I mean sure they study but the actual intelligence is genetics and luck. You shouldn't feel bad because you lucked into a fantastic ability."

Panacea said, "My Mom always says that I have a duty to people."

Mist shrugged, "It's your life, you're a kid."

"I'm not a kid."

"Sorry, I mean you're a rather responsible teenager. Teenagers are supposed to enjoy themselves and shouldn't have the weight of the world on their shoulders. Take a break and know that there will still be people here that can heal people."

"It's going to be weird… You really gave them all permanent powers didn't you?" She wasn't quite sure how she felt about not being the only healer around anymore but figured it might give her some time off.

"There were way too many people for one person to heal. If you want, I'll give you a regeneration ability that should help keep you from driving yourself into the ground."

Panacea sighed, "Then Mom would just expect me to work harder."

Mist snorted, "Only if you tell her."

"You're telling me I should lie?"

"Nah, just not volunteer information. Think of it as payment for services rendered to the city over the last couple years."

Panacea asked, "Are those the only powers that you can grant?"

Mist chuckled, "I can give a lot of different powers. Flight, durability, teleportation, invisibility… actually you name it I can probably give it to you."

"That's a rather fantastic ability."

"It's great except that I can't give myself more abilities."

Panacea laughed, "Whiner…sorry."

"Nah, it's pretty funny. I mean, I get super powers and I can only really make other people better."

"I think I needed that."

Mist smiled at Panacea, "So, I've got one power left today, regeneration or something else? I can give you a couple more abilities tomorrow."

"Why?"

"Because that's what I do. Besides, you're a full biokinetic, you've had your powers for a while now and haven't abused them. You've been at the hospital healing people for years. I think you deserve a break."

Panacea sighed, "I'm not…There are times when I just want to screw up so that they stop asking for my help."

"It's called burnout, that's one of the reasons people take vacations. I mean seriously they can't expect you to be in multiple places at once can they? Wait, actually that's a great idea. I can give you the ability to make temporary clones of yourself so that you can send one to the hospital, have one head to the mall for fun and have one do your homework while another gets a bubble bath. How long has it been since you spent some time to yourself without feeling guilty that you weren't at the hospital or doing something important?"

Panacea's eyes widened, "Since I got my powers…"

"In that case, we'll go with clones. You could always claim that you can't copy your healing ability more than once or twice. That would leave you with several clones to have fun with."

"I don't like lying."

"Bullshit? I know what your power is."

"I don't want to screw up…"

"I know, I suggest visiting the mental ward or the criminally insane ward of a prison for some practice before you try to heal your dad. I mean seriously, start small or test things on rats or something. No one reasonable expects you to cure him first thing."

"What if I screw up?"

"The rats die and no one cares… if you screw up on the criminally insane then you screw up… they're in prison for life, by all rights some of them should have gotten the chair or had their heads cut off anyways. If you screw up on them, they aren't much worse."

Panacea raised an eyebrow, "That's harsh but I can see your point."

"If makes you feel better you can always say I upgraded your power."

Selena snorted to try and stop the snickers. "Or you can just upgrade her power so it works better to start with. Or call in Thor."

Mist nodded, "That might work better?"

"Thor?"

"I've got a friend that can alter people and fix brains. It might be a better option anyways as doctors shouldn't work on family."

Panacea smiled in relief, "Thank you."

Mist conjured an orb and tossed it to Panacea. "Here, that should let you make clones of yourself. Grab a nap and make more after you wake up. That way they're fresh and you're not driving yourself crazy."

Panacea smirked as five clones of her appeared around the room. "Okay."

Selena looked around at the as far as she could tell perfect copies of Panacea. "That goes on my list."

Mist chuckled, "Tomorrow or maybe the next day. I've got plans, some type of shape changing so that Panacea can have a secret identity or at least walk down the street without being mobbed. Maybe the ability to stop time for a bit so that she can have a break from things without feeling guilty."

Panacea said, "Or get to people in a fight." as four of the clones headed out of the room to work on healing more people.

"Or that." Mist grinned, "You should get some rest. One more healer right now isn't going to make much difference compared to having four well rested healers later."

Panacea sighed, "It's weird, it's like I'm in five places at once and it's not a stretch."

"I ran into a girl with phenomenal nearly cosmic multitasking so I took a note out of her book on how I set up the clone ability."

"Which me is the real one?"

"All of you actually, you can cancel the clones from whichever clone you want. I suggest picking one that isn't injured." He replied with a chuckle.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome." Mist grinned as he handed her the number of one of the burner phones he had liberated. "Call me tomorrow and I will give you a couple more powers."

Selena waved a finger at Panacea, "Only if she actually gets some rest."

Panacea held up her hands, "I'll get some sleep."

"Good. You're at a very real risk of burning out at the pace you're going right now."

Panacea sighed, "I keep hearing Mom's voice whining that I should be out there healing people."

Selena sighed, "Your Mom needs to chill out. She never gave you a chance to have a secret identity or have much of a life."

"And this is after a member of her family got killed because she or they were stupid enough to paint big targets on their backs." Mist deadpanned. "You don't think our healer's real name is Thor do you?"

Panacea shook her head, "No, that would be stupid."

"Well, it would be if he wasn't Scandinavian but yeah… Most people would say someone was naming their kids after comic books."

Selena said, "It also helps that he's fairly durable and can teleport if he needs to."

"Take care, get some sleep and we'll see you tomorrow. Bring your sister if you want." Mist figured it would give him a chance to fix her aura so that it had an off switch.

Panacea moved over to the couch and sprawled out on it. She'd rather have her bed but that would mean dealing with her mother's whining about why she wasn't at the hospital healing people. "I'll do that."

Selena grabbed Mist's hand, "Let's go back and check to make sure Thor hasn't blown anything up."

"That's a good plan."

~#~Scene Break~#~

Charles was lying stretched out on their new couch with a tousle headed brunette on his chest with a glass of scotch in his hand judging from the bottle on the flat remnants of the coffee table when the other two came in. "Hi."

Mist yawned as he walked over to the other couch and flopped down on it, "I can't get tired and I'm exhausted or at least mentally exhausted. I'm surprised that girl hasn't already gone off the deep end. The number of stupid people that wanted more than healing in the middle of a crisis. I mean shouldn't it be enough that we pulled the jagged piece of glass out of their bodies and healed them?"

"She's got far more patience than I would have." Charles replied with a shrug. "I would have already told her mother where to stick it at this point."

"Yeah, I had to convince myself not to chemically castrate a couple of them."

Selena snorted, "You mean we weren't supposed to?"

"I don't care if you did." Charles replied sardonically, draining his scotch in two swallows. "Stupid people shouldn't breed. It pollutes the gene pool and it's already had enough damage. That reminds me, I need to figure out a way to install filters on that sucker."

"Filters on what?" Mist asked.

"The gene pool." Charles replied, pouring himself another glass of scotch.

"Ah, well we can probably do something about that if we set up a modification clinic. I remember an old book that had monsters or aliens or creatures with stars on them and the same type of creature without. The story started when one day a man showed up that could change that. He built a machine that could remove stars or give them. It went back and forth before the economy collapsed and everything went to hell because no one could tell who had been a star. Eventually after they were all broke and mixed up the guy left. The upside is that people realized it didn't matter who had stars and who didn't. I doubt that people will actually realize that skin color doesn't matter but the mad scientist got rich from people's stupidity."

Charles shrugged. "I have no idea how the hell their economy could even work if it was based on who had a 'star' but yes, people are willing to pay for body modifications to the point of ridiculousness. Just look at California."

"Nah, he charged lots of money to flip and flop the stars. Eventually everyone went broke trying to keep in the 'popular' group. While I don't think we could pull off anything that crazy offering to permanently change someone's hair for fifty to a hundred dollars would probably net us a decent amount of money. I'm sure there are some idiots around that wouldn't mind having a different skin color."

"Permanent changes in hair color and pattern would make a bloody fortune. L'Oreal charges that much for a dye kit." Selena snorted.

"Exactly."

Charles shrugged. "It's actually in my plans to make physical body modifications cheap at the clinic I was thinking of setting up. Fixing hair loss and hair color is dirt simple, I've changed Riley's hair color and the growth pattern about a dozen times because she's asleep on my chest and I haven't bothered waking her up."

Selena glanced at Mist, "Or you know regrowing hair."

Mist rolled his eyes, "It's on the list of things to deal with."

Charles snorted and reached over and poked Mist in the forehead, changing hair patterns and making his hair grow in various ways. "Look in the mirror and tell me when it's how you want it."

Mist waited until it was back to where he remembered it being in high school then said, "That works."

"Good." Charles shrugged and sipped his scotch. "This hotel has good scotch in stock in the minibars… I don't think they'll appreciate the fact I took it from an empty room even if I did leave 50 bucks for the bottle though."

Selena shrugged, "Details, at least you paid for it."

Mist looked at the sleeping girl, "Have you finished building her personality yet?"

"Yeah, all finished… and she has memories up through her apparent age. She's also in the system and I have full custody." Charles replied. "Thanks to the mental suggestions I made at the appropriate offices when we were getting our IDs… all it took was a phone call."

"How long do you want to wait before we hand her a couple of powers?"

"I already did that. I may not be able to do it like you can, but any power I have or that's locked in my powers vault I can now alter and distribute copies of. I decided that you were overworked and underpaid." Charles snorted.

Mist figured it was yet another example of Eidolon's power set being broken. "Ah cool, so what did you give her?"

"Well, I gave her the Maddy package from Wolfblood… along with the ability to shift into a full werewolf form and a Hookwolf based metallic furred were-critter… and the Alexandria package… Though we may wind up regretting it I also gave her the ability to manipulate hard light like I do and some fairly minor telepathic abilities. I was thinking about giving her back her medical powers WITHOUT the plague engineering abilities but I thought I'd wait on your input." Charles replied.

"I've got no problems with giving her the Tinker abilities back but I sort of wanted to wait until they declared Bonesaw dead officially." Mist said thoughtfully.

"Makes sense to me." Charles nodded.

Selena said, "Mist gave Panacea the ability to be in multiple places at once."

"Sounds good, I wouldn't mind having that one myself." Charles replied with a shrug.

"Maybe tomorrow. Though honestly you can just Eidolon farm it."

"Yeah, but I've been mostly filling my Eidolon slots with stuff that is more generally useful… Though I suppose the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu ability is a damn good thing to add for versatility." Charles said thoughtfully, rubbing his chin.

"Exactly. If you start wearing orange I'm going to be annoyed."

"Heh. Naruto isn't the only one who uses it. Hell, Kiba and every other Inuzuka uses a variant of it for their clan techniques. If the Hokages don't use it, it's only because the author is an idiot." Charles grinned around his cigar. "Well, the author of Naruto is an idiot… no real way to deny that."

"Just saying." Mist held up his hands. "He's a creative idiot but yeah he liked handing the idiot ball to characters."

Selena shook her head, "I should go work on my teleportation device."

Mist looked at Selena, "Just as long as it's not a fucking Star Trek disintegration and cloning machine."

Selena snorted, "Nah, I'm thinking of pocket spaces and pulling people back in… or I might just make a portal gun from the portal game or maybe something more useful."

Charles grinned. "Oh, I also gave Riley regular tinkering abilities. Though I kinda left the specialization random … eh … she'll have all sorts of Tinkering abilities when we give her the others."

Suddenly there came a very cute yawn and a kittenish stretch from the warm body on his chest. "T'me is it?" Riley asked sleepily.

"Time for you to wake up…" Charles replied with a grin.

Riley pouted cutely and poked him firmly in the chest. "I was sleepy."

Selena waved a finger at Charles, "A girl needs her beauty sleep now and then."

Riley nodded enthusiastically. "Right … and cuddles and chocolate."

Selena's eyes widened as schematics for a chocolate machine floated into her mind. "Oh, chocolate."

Mist asked, "How you feeling?"

"I think there was supposed to be a sentence there, but Selena had it shortened too much." Riley replied looking over at Selena curiously.

"Sorry, I just realized I knew a way to make a machine that made delicious chocolate if you poured the ingredients into the back of it."

Riley grinned. "Sounds like a good machine to make to meeee…."

Mist sighed, "Get some sleep after that?"

Charles chuckled. "I think she works on the 'time enough for sleep when I'm dead' principle. It doesn't really work … but some people think it does."

Riley yawned cutely and curled into Charles' chest. "What are we having for supper?"

Mist sighed, "I'll order pizza, I can pick it up from the lobby."

"No anchovies." Riley ordered firmly. "Salty fishies are not for putting on pizza."

"Yeah, no." Mist pulled out his phone and called the pizza company.

Selena asked, "Does anyone want to help with the chocolate machine while we wait?"

Riley hopped up, barely missing placing her knee in a very uncomfortable spot on her impromptu chair before rushing toward Selena. "I do!"

Charles grunted and glared at her fondly. "Hey!"

Riley waved at him and turned to grin at him cutely before darting into the lab with a giggle.

"It's official… even the cute miniature ones are evil." Charles muttered.

Mist snickered then went back to ordering four large supreme pizzas so there would be leftovers.

~#~Scene Break~#~

Glory Girl stared at the six copies of her sister, "Which one is the real you?"

"We are legion, for we are many." All of the copies and the 'real' Panacea said at the same time.

"Shit. That's creepy. How sure are you that this is safe?"

The clones all shrugged at once, "We feel fine, there is nothing wrong."

"Stop that."

Panacea snickered, "Sorry but the look on your face was so worth it."

"At least you're not talking with all of them…"

A muffled giggle from an empty area of the roof surprised both of them.

Glory Girl whirled to face the threat, "Show yourself!"

"Okay!" A cheerful voice chimed and suddenly a cute brunette who looked to be roughly Vista's age appeared in the empty space. "Hi!" she grinned and waved at the girls.

Panacea asked, "Who are you?"

"I'm Sif; Thor's little sister." She replied with a happy smile.

"Are you going to tell us where we're going then?"

"I could…" Riley trailed off thoughtfully. "Or we could meet here… or … we could play tag… or… hmmm…" she rubbed her chin with a grin.

Glory Girl shook her head, "Tag wouldn't work as we don't really know where we're going. Follow the leader?"

Riley grinned. "That could work!" she exclaimed and spun in a circle before running to the edge of the roof and jumping off.

Glory Girl jumped for the edge of the roof then realized that the girl could fly. "Crap."

Riley waved up at Glory Girl and then took off at a decent clip flying through the alleyway.

"Which copy am I grabbing?"

"Me." One of the Panaceas walked over to Glory Girl and the rest headed back to the hospital stairs to go back to work healing people.

Glory Girl picked up Panacea then followed Riley on a warped game of follow the leader.

Riley quite happily lead the two of them through loop de loops and various switchbacks which made a few block trip take half an hour before they arrived at Fugly Bob's.

Riley dropped out of the air for a neat three point landing and grinned at the other two before being grabbed by a guy dressed as Thor from the Avengers movie and given a noogie. "What took you so long?"

Riley grinned up at him innocently. "They're bad at following directions?"

Glory Girl carefully landed then set Panacea down in front of the restaurant. "Hey, you didn't tell us where we were going."

"What would be the fun in that?" Riley asked, smiling cutely from her position tucked against his chest.

Panacea frowned as she thought about some of the turns and maneuvers that her sister had pulled, "I'm looking forward to being able to fly myself."

"It's fun!" Riley chimed happily.

Glory Girl asked, "So now what?"

Charles shrugged. "Burger and onion rings I think… and a chocolate shake."

Glory Girl looked at Panacea, "I thought you said that we were going to meet the person that could give out powers?"

"That and food." Panacea replied.

"Oh… that's why you're here. I was just waiting on Sif." Charles replied with a grin, picking Riley up and carting her inside the restaurant. "Come on, he's probably here already."

Riley nodded. "Food is good!" she called behind her at the other girls as she was carried horizontally through the door of the restaurant.

Glory Girl sighed as she followed Charles into the restaurant.

Mist looked up as the rest of the people grabbed chairs and sat down. "Nice to meet you Vicky." He turned to look at Panacea, "So which powers did you want?" He grabbed a fry off his plate and ate it.

Riley grinned. "She should be a puppy."

Mist turned to look at Riley. "What?"

"It's fun!" She stated firmly as if he was asking the stupidest question in the world.

"Okay, one Beastboy upgrade without the green coming up if she wants it."

Panacea asked, "Does that take up one of my choices?"

Mist shrugged, "Nah."

Charles chuckled. "Nope, I can do that one - it wouldn't use up one of his dailies."

"Speaking of which, let's start with flight or something like that." He conjured a psychokinesis orb and handed it to Panacea.

"Telekinesis." Selena reminded, poking him.

"Psychokinesis actually, it's telekinesis plus other types of energy."

"Works well for flight and other things." Charles agreed.

Panacea blinked as the orb was absorbed into her skin and she realized she knew how to use the new power. "That's… wow." She giggled as one of the full water glasses slid across the table to her.

Charles nonchalantly ordered the biggest cheeseburger with the works Fugly Bob's offered and an order of onion rings and a large chocolate shake to go with it and Riley did the same. The waitress for some reason ignoring the strange stuff going on in the booth.

Mist grinned, "One down, nine to go for today. At least from me."

Riley shrugged. "Psychokinesis is fun; but I still say being a puppy is fun too."

Mist looked at Charles, "Go for it."

"One Maddy special coming up… Full were you think?" he asked, looking at Riley curiously.

Riley nodded enthusiastically and Charles reached over and planted his index finger on Panacea's forehead and visibly channeled a glow into her. "There you go, one Maddy special and now you can be a puppy."

Panacea blinked, going slightly cross-eyed looking at the finger on her forehead. "Thanks."

Glory Girl asked, "Can you do that for me?"

"Puppies!" Riley chanted happily.

Charles shook his head bemusedly and reached over to touch Glory Girl's forehead as well, the glow once again coming to his hand and flowing into her. "There, another Maddy Special… Now you two can baby-sit."

Glory Girl shifted into a fairly large wolf that was still obviously in the puppy stage of growth.

Panacea's eyes went wide, "That's a large puppy."

Riley nodded enthusiastically. "Yep. Thor calls the full were shape his Lon Cheney impression."

Glory Girl sniffed at Riley then swapped back. "That was strange."

"Your nose and ears were telling you things you couldn't understand?" Charles asked curiously.

Mist shrugged, "It should get better with practice."

Charles looked at Panacea and frowned a bit thoughtfully… "Did you boost her durability already?"

"I'll fix that." He conjured two durability orbs then hit Panacea with them. "There were go, brute 7 or so for durability. I wouldn't hug Behemoth but other than that you're probably good."

"Not to mention the telekinesis boost which sets it a bit higher." Charles nodded. "Bullets and rocket launchers definitely won't be a problem for you anymore."

Panacea blinked, "Thank you."

The waitress wandered over and delivered the food for Riley and Charles who happily accepted their identical plates.

Glory Girl blinked, "I think I'm jealous… how is such a tiny girl gonna pack in all that food?"

Riley grinned innocently.

"And this is after eating what must have been close to her own body weight in chocolate." Charles snorted.

Riley kicked him under the table. "I did not!"

Mist replied, "Only because Selena cut you off."

"It's good chocolate." Riley said by means of rebuttal and dug into her onion rings.

"I know." Mist looked at Glory Girl, "What are you looking for in powers other than an off switch for your aura? That one is free and doesn't take up one of my upgrade orbs."

"I can give you a metabolism so good that you'll never gain an ounce… but you'll likely want to eat like the two of us." Charles offered and waved an onion ring between himself and Riley.

Riley nodded. "It's going to be an option at the clinic!"

Panacea asked, "Clinic?"

Glory Girl smirked, "That would be great but I've already got a decent metabolism."

"Yeah, I've recently been reminded just how much hell teenagers put each other through based on their appearances so I figured I'd add the option for girls and guys to get flaws fixed at the clinic I'm opening for taking care of the victims of the Merchant's little slave trading empire. I figure I'll be done dealing with mental trauma and scarring from that soon enough in any case." Charles replied.

Glory Girl frowned as she considered her options, "How about some type of ranged attack?"

Mist winced as he pictured the sheer level of property damage that would probably result if he actually gave Glory Girl psychokinesis. "How about a ranged stun attack?"

Glory Girl glanced at her sister then decided that a ranged stun would save her sister some work. "That would be perfect."

Mist reached out and pulled Glory Girl's shard and her power out of her. He let the shard leave and tweaked the aura so that it had an off switch before tweaking things so that Glory Girl's children would inherit her power then gave it back to her. "Okay, I gave you an off switch." He conjured an upgrade orb with a targeted ranged stun attack and gave it to her. "Here. It won't work against most high end brutes but it should work on squishy people just fine."

Glory Girl smiled as she turned her aura off, "Thanks."

Mist asked with a smirk, "Tinkering ability?"

Panacea considered, "I've got my copies… what can you give me?"

"Squealers abilities?"

Glory Girl snorted, "Would she have to make things that ugly?"

"I'm fairly sure that was a personal choice." Mist hadn't seen anything in the actual ability that required them to look like pieces of junk.

Panacea asked, "If it's not that much trouble, I'd rather have a teleportation ability."

"I can give tinker stuff; I have the pattern stored…" Charles said, reaching over with the cold finger that was recently on his shake glass and poking her again to transfer the power to her. "Did you want Squealer's specialization in cars?"

Mist shrugged, "There isn't a limit on the number of specializations so you might as well take it."

"In that case yes please." Panacea replied.

Charles shrugged and applied that as well, using his other hand to munch onion rings.

Glory Girl pouted, "Well, if it's not an issue…"

Mist conjured an upgrade orb with teleportation and gave it to Panacea. "Here. This should get you to anywhere you can see or to anyone you know. Camera's should also work for targeting. It should make sneaking out of the house easier."

Charles chuckled and reached over and poked Glory Girl as well, transferring a tinker power with Squealer's specialization to her as well. "There, now you can play grease monkey too."

Glory Girl said, "Thank you, I'm glad you're not villains."

Mist shrugged, "Villains make too many enemies and hurt too many innocent people for my taste. Besides, we can make far more money with the clinic or selling powers than we'd make as a standard villain."

"Besides, heroes get more cuddles." Riley speaks up with all the authority a fourteen year old girl could possibly muster.

Mist opened his mouth to point out that villains with master powers could get plenty of cuddles then decided that it wasn't worth it. "Good point."

Panacea laughed, "This power is fantastic."

Glory Girl frowned, "What do you mean?"

"I'm teleporting around with a clone."

Glory Girl shook her head, "Mom going to freak, I should grab a camera… I mean maybe we shouldn't tell her."

Panacea sighed, "I don't think she'll take it well."

"Control freak lady doesn't need to know anything you don't want to tell her." Charles said firmly, munching the last of his burger. "Frankly the lady needs to unclench, go get laid and let you make your own choices."

Glory Girl thought about that and decided that he had a point, "I'm not going to say anything that you don't want me to. Dad… yeah well that's half the problem. I don't suppose you have something that can fix chronic depression?"

"Sure I do. I fixed my own anyway. It's not like it's difficult; just tweak the brain chemicals, and mine was worse. I had full blown bi-polar disorder." Charles replied and slurped the last of his shake. "Of course dealing with teeny bopper annoyances can drive me to drink still."

Glory Girl smiled, "That would be fantastic."

Panacea was just glad that he didn't mention the fact that she could have fixed him years ago if it wasn't for one of her stupid rules. "That would be nice."

Mist asked, "Anything else?"

"I think they both need some sort of instant disguise stuff; but they could do that with shapeshifting. Their parents have some very stupid ideas." Charles replied as he used an alcohol swab to clean his hands and passed Riley one.

Glory Girl sighed, "They were trying to be open but I don't think they really considered what would happen when they had children and that they had to sleep eventually."

Charles nodded. "Sleep is one of those things that happens. So were the Slaughterhouse 9 and various other psychopathic capes. Unfortunately triggering is always traumatic and not everyone can handle what happens."

"I've got five abilities left to hand out today, I'm willing to toss another one your way if you want."

Panacea asked, "What about force fields?"

"That's not a bad idea, that would give you something to do in a battle." Mist conjured an upgrade orb and tossed it to Panacea. "Between that and your psychokinesis you should be good to go. That leaves me with four powers to hand out today." Mist smiled as he looked at Glory Girl, "I don't suppose you know any Wards that want upgrades to their powers?"

Glory Girl figured if nothing else she knew a fair number of them would want some type of durability. "I'm fairly sure that some of them would be interested in durability. I have a feeling that Clockblocker would love you forever if you could give him a counter on his power so that he knew how long someone would be frozen."

Mist snorted, "That's almost a reason not to tweak things but I should be able to at least do that much. Actually, I can probably do some fun and amusing things with his power, do you think you could get him to show up?"

Glory Girl nodded, "I don't see why not especially since you were able to help me with my aura."

Riley stated, "She can call them and they can meet here, that gives everyone time to finish their food. I want another shake."

Charles chuckled and tousled her hair. "Do you honestly need MORE sugar?"

"Yep!"

Mist shrugged, "If she gets too bad we'll just modify her so that sugar doesn't give her a high."

Riley pouted, "That's not fair."

"And just mean to boot." Panacea grinned.

Riley looked at Panacea, "See! She gets it."

Charles chuckled and flagged down the waitress, ordering Riley a refill on her shake and himself some more onion rings and a Dr. Pepper.

Mist went back to eating while Glory Girl called Clockblocker and Dean.


	7. Chapter 7

Clockblocker was rather stunned that the Loki impersonator was able to adjust his power such that he could actually control how long he froze something. "This is fantastic… you could make a lot of money tweaking powers."

Mist shrugged, "I'm not all that worried about money right now."

Battery asked, "Can you fix my power so that it doesn't need the charge time?"

Mist shook his head, "Sorry, your power is rather weird. Your body can only stand so much but I can hook you up with regeneration which would probably help with a lot of your issues."

Charles looked over and playfully pinched her rear with telekinesis. "And I think I should be able to give you an organ that stores a bio-electric charge and can then convert it to power your ability."

Battery ignored the pitch when her mind processed what the Thor look alike had offered her. "Really?"

Assault grinned, "That would nice."

"She should be a puppy." Riley piped up from her corner.

"What is your obsession with everyone being puppies?" Charles asked with a raised eyebrow.

Riley grinned back, "Puppies are fun!"

"She'd be full grown, not exactly a puppy." Charles grinned back at her.

"So?" Riley replied with fourteen year old logic.

Assault smirked, "She'll always be my puppy."

Battery just groaned.

Dean shook his head, "TMI, not that I don't already get way too much of that because of my power."

"We could give you an off switch." Mist replied.

"That would be great." Dean wouldn't mind being able to turn his power off.

Mist reached out and pulled Dean's power out and tweaked it so that he had an off switch and added a little more functionality so that he had a better idea what emotions were coming from whom then put the power back in Gallant. "There we go."

Glory Girl watched the orb sink into her boyfriend and said, "That's still creepy."

Charles chuckled and reached over, playfully poking Clockblocker and Battery at the same time, but doing so sneakily so they couldn't exactly see him if they weren't paying attention to who was doing the poking and gave them both the Wolfblood package and the tinkering stuff.

Clockblocker blinked as various schematics for strange time related devices bounced through his mind. "Okay, that's weird. Did you make me a tinker?"

Charles grinned behind his shake, not saying a word.

Mist smirked as he conjured an upgrade orb and tossed it to Battery, "Here you go. Regeneration and long life."

Riley sniffed and then turned a huge smile on Charles from her position and seemingly broke out into spontaneous hugs and wound up in his lap.

"I'm down to three up more upgrades, "Let's see, do you want to be able to speed yourself up so much that you're basically stopping time Clock or do you want the ability to conjure prank items?"

Battery glared at Mist, "Fuck."

Clockblocker smirked behind his mask, "What type of prank materials?"

Charles patted her gently on the shoulder. "There, there, it'll be okay."

Battery sighed, "I guess I'll take the good with the bad… but seriously you're asking for trouble."

Charles shrugged and sneakily poked Assault and channeled the Wolfblood package along with tinkering to him as well, privately wondering how Battery didn't notice earlier.

Assault smirked but otherwise didn't say anything.

Mist shrugged, "Either that or you can have a snack food conjuring ability."

Riley grinned. "That's a good one…" and got her wavy hair tousled for her trouble.

Clockblocker debated then decided that Riley had a point and it would keep him out of trouble besides he had workaround, "I can conjure pies, right?"

"I'm going to set it up as a general food conjuring ability so yeah, whip cream pies or other types would be workable."

"Hit me." Clockblocker smirked behind his mask.

Battery sighed as she thought about the trouble that he could get up to with the ability to conjure food but at least it had some useful aspects. "At least it's useful."

Mist conjured the upgrade orb and hit Clockblocker with it. "There."

Clockblocker thought of a chocolate bar and conjured it. "Okay, that's weird but fun."

Riley grinned and quick as lightning reached to snatch the chocolate bar out of his hand. "Yoink!"

Charles just shook his head. "That modification where you don't get jazzed off sugar is looking better and better."

Riley elbowed him in the side. "Be nice."

Mist conjured another orb and filled it with a mental defense power then tossed it to Panacea, "Here."

"What was that?" Panacea asked.

Mist shrugged, "Just some stuff to keep Masters and Strangers from messing with your head."

Battery asked, "Can you do that for everyone?"

"Only if I wanted to waste upgrade orbs on it. Charles might be able to help with that though."

Charles looked up from where he was trying to steal part of Riley's stolen chocolate bar. "Hmmm?"

"Maybe teach them some type of mental defense or something? Can you give them some type of mental shields?"

"Sure, I can do that." Charles reached over and poked people, causing a glow to flow from his hand down into each of them in turn. "There, one set of minor telepathic powers, mainly good for knowing who is behind the door and keeping people from fucking with your head. Riley you didn't hear that."

Riley grinned, "Didn't hear what?"

Assault said, "You certainly have a decent number of broken powers."

Mist shrugged, "I actually only have a couple of powers, it's just that they're rather useful."

Charles grinned wickedly. "He's the buffer. MY powers are broken."

"Yeah, I mean seriously being able to copy your powers and give them to other people is broken." Assault replied.

"Puppies not broken." Riley glared at Assault with ferocious cuteness.

Assault held up his hands, "Okay, puppies are good."

Panacea grinned, "I like puppies."

Charles tickled Riley. "Now it's your turn to be nice."

Riley mock pouted, "Okay."

Mist looked at Dean and Clockblocker, "Flight or regeneration?"

Clockblocker decided that they had healers that could fix them up and that flight was really cool, "Flight."

Dean glanced at Glory Girl, it would be nice to be able to fly around with his Girlfriend and not have to be carried around. "Flight."

Glory Girl smirked.

Panacea mock pouted, "I see how it is, I swear I should start charging for my services."

"Then you can afford all the good toys." Charles grinned and waggled his eyebrows.

"Video games and laser tag…" Panacea grinned as she thought about all the toys that she couldn't get because they were 'childish' and her mother didn't want to encourage that behavior.

Mist grinned, "Flight or there abouts coming up." He conjured a psychokinesis orb for each of the male Wards and hit them with them. "That should let you fly and set things on fire and a couple of other things if you practice with it. It's basically mid level psychokinesis."

Clockblocker smiled, "Excellent."

Battery sighed, "I'm not doing the paperwork on this."

Assault smirked, "What paperwork?"

Mist said, "I'm out of presents for today but I can probably help Vista tomorrow if I have time."

Clockblocker smiled, "I'm sure that she'd love you forever if you could give her flight and a couple other powers."

Charles checked his watch curiously to see when the full moon would be. "Hmmm, six days…"

Riley asked, "Six days until what?"

"The full moon." Charles replied with a grin.

Mist shrugged, "Right, we should probably let these nice heroes get back to patrols and such things."

"And give the nice lady back her table." Riley grinned and then poked Charles. "Leave a good tip, she was nice."

"This demonstrates that even miniaturized females are bossy." Charles nodded solemnly as if delivering the wisdom of the ages.

Mist pulled out two twenty and placed them under his glass. "Sure thing."

Clockblocker said, "Thanks again for fixing my power so I can pick how long I freeze something for."

"It was easy, while I can't promise that I can help all of the wards, I can probably tweak a couple of things tomorrow if you want."

Assault nodded slightly, "I'll give you a call after I talk to Director Piggot."

"I should be free tomorrow." Mist finished the last of his shake then got up from his chair and headed toward the front desk to pay.

Panacea looked at Charles, "Can I come visit with Riley?"

"Sure, I don't see why not." Charles replied and poked Riley who merely mumbled and snuggled, burying her nose in his neck. "And now we have the sugar crash, which demonstrates why little girls or anyone else shouldn't try to consume their own body weight in chocolate."

Glory Girl frowned as she looked at her sister, "What do I tell Mom?"

"Tell her I'm still at the hospital because I am." Panacea smiled.

"That you didn't consume your own weight in chocolate?" Charles grinned.

"That too." Panacea smiled.

Clockblocker sighed as he realized that they were going to have to do a lot of testing on their new abilities.

~#~Scene Break~#~

Lisa answered her phone, "Hey boss, what's up?"

Mist watched Panacea and Riley play a video game while he chatted on the phone. He whispered, "Did you have a chance to loot Coil's accounts and properties?"

"Yes, he was very helpful before he tragically fell down a manhole cover, thankfully his life insurance policy covered accidents. I lost a bit to taxes but it let me officially pick up his company and his house without too many issues. Thanks for the fake ID by the way."

"You can thank Thor for that one. Speaking of that we should get together at some point so that you can get upgraded with Tinker abilities and the ability to turn into a wolf puppy."

Lisa laughed, "Bitch would love that. She's doing better without her shard screwing her up, not that she's all that social but she's better. Regent is still an ass and Brian isn't any different as far as I can tell."

"Have you had any headaches since I tossed your shard?" Mist asked.

"Nope, my power is better than ever."

"Excellent, I boosted a couple of Wards today, I'll probably boost a couple tomorrow then the next day I'll work on boosting your team a bit more. Speaking of, if you want to collect a bunch of broken equipment I'll give someone a power to magically fix things tomorrow."

Lisa said, "Running around fixing broken glass and electronics with a wave of our hand would be a good PR stunt."

"Just wear a different costume until we can get Rachel's legal issues sorted out."

Lisa laughed, "A power to conjure costumes could be good."

"Thor makes hard light costumes but I agree having someone in the group able to conjure up permanent costumes would be good. I might just visit Parian and see if she wants the upgrade."

Lisa grinned, "We'll start collecting electronics in our civilian identities and keep Bitch out of sight."

"Hopefully we can get that resolved before too long. If not then we'll just give her a minor shape changing power for her alternate identity. How are the Travelers working out?"

"Trickster is still an ass but Noelle is keeping him in line. Jess is working on physical therapy and the rest are enjoying some down time. I have a feeling that we'll have to figure out something eventually but for now we can afford to stay off the radar."

"Let me know if anything changes, I'll send Thor to give you some upgrades today. Apparently he can give people some general Tinker abilities."

"That's something we don't have and would appreciate."

"You're welcome and have fun." Mist ended the call. "At least that's done with."

~#~Scene Break~#~

Charles looked over at Panacea and Riley and called, "Hey, I need to go out for a while are you two gonna be okay driving the other two crazy while I'm gone?"

Riley gave Charles a thumbs up before going back to beating up monsters on the video game.

Panacea nodded, "We'll be fine."

Charles teleported to Coil's old base and scanned the area for active minds. Noelle was in one of the rooms with Regent, Bitch was with her dogs in one of the rooms and Jess was in Coil's old office with Lisa. Shrugging he headed to the room Bitch had commandeered to see what was up with her as it was much closer to where he teleported in.

Bitch looked up when Charles knocked on the door, "Yes?"

Charles opened the door and stood still with a hand out to the dogs so they could get a good sniff of him. "Hi, how're you feeling today?"

"Better, I haven't felt this good in a while. What do you need?"

"Well, I was wondering if you'd like some new powers and came to talk to you about some options since evidently political crap has come calling." Charles replied, dropping to one knee and petting her dogs.

"What new powers?"

"Riley calls it Puppy… I call it the Maddy package, or the Wolfblood package depending on how cutesy I'm in the mood to be at the time." Charles grinned at her.

"Wolfblood? What's that?"

"Basically it's a transformational ability… Gives the ability to turn into a wolf, enhanced senses even in human form as well as better strength, speed and dexterity… My version also comes with a wereform."

"Yes."

Charles grinned at her and walked over and moving slowly so she could watch his hand reached over and touched her forehead and sent the abilities across to be absorbed. "Also, I'd like to give you some mental shields so a Master or Stranger will have a much harder time controlling you."

"Okay…"

Charles nodded and sent those powers across as well. "Now, for the unfortunate political crap. We've hit a few snags with clearing your name even using Coil as a scapegoat. The easiest way to deal with it is to make you a fresh identity. I can handle the necessary body modifications or give you a shapeshifting power if you'd rather be able to keep your current looks and still go about in public in a different form."

"I'd rather be able to keep my old look and smell but I'd like to be able to walk my dogs down the street without people freaking out."

"Hmmm… well, smell isn't a big issue; we'll keep working to clear your name so you'll be able to walk down the street as yourself eventually… this is more or less a stopgap measure until then. I can give you hardlight powers and then you could disguise yourself and your dogs or shapeshifting so you'd actually change into someone else and it wouldn't be a costume." Charles replied, laying out the options. "Or the last option which is body sculpting."

Bitch asked, "Both of the first two? Shape change and hard light?"

Charles nodded and gave her those abilities, then reached in and carefully worked to fix her shard. "I can fix your shard so your dogs don't look so asymmetrical and messed up when you use your powers on them which should help separate your new persona from the old one and probably improve your power's response time and how long it'll last when you use it if you'd like."

"You can fix it so they don't look as strange?"

"I believe so; I do have examples of various Shaper powers after all." Charles replied. "One more thing I'm offering is telepathy with your dogs."

"As long as they're as tough and the alterations won't hurt them then do it. Can you remove it if it doesn't work?"

"I don't see a problem there; if I can't my friend can." Charles replied.

"Then that sounds useful…. thank you."

Charles nodded, gently scratching her scalp as he made the modifications.

Bitch relaxed slightly as she reminded herself that they had already helped her a lot. She tensed up a little when she found that she could hear bits and pieces of her dogs' thoughts and emotions. She smiled as she found that she could give her dogs mental commands if she kept them simple enough. She relaxed after she realized that it wasn't mind control so much as mental speech. "Thank you."

"You're welcome; want me to work on your friends also? I think I can give them some enhancements as well." Charles offered.

Bitch frowned slightly and gently grabbed one of the four dogs with her, "Can you not give this one strength yet? He's not fully trained or did you mean durability?"

"I meant both; I can try modifying them however you want. But I had in mind strength and durability for the most part and maybe enhancing their intelligence a bit." Charles replied.

"Making them smarter and tougher would help with all of them. They might break something if they get too much stronger without training."

Charles nodded and reached out and gently scratched behind Angelica and Brutus' ears, channeling his powers to work on their durability, intelligence and strength. He then repeated the process on Judas and reached out and improved the durability and intelligence of the fourth pup whose name he didn't know. "There, all done except for strength on this one." he said as he scratched it's ears.

"I'll work on training him. Thank you for taking out Hookwolf. That should help stop the dog fights."

Charles nodded. "He's lucky I didn't feel more vindictive and that Assault and Battery were there. Otherwise my punishment for him wouldn't have just been spinning him until he puked all over himself."

"He needed to be put down but at least he's off the streets."

Charles nodded and tousled her hair gently. "Well, I'm off to see Noelle and Lisa to help them out too."

"Good luck." Bitch started petting her dogs.

Charles checked the other's positions again and then headed to the closest ones.

Regent looked over when he Charles at the open doorway, "Help, she's beating the hell out of my character."

"Oh?" Charles raised an eyebrow and walked inside, looking around curiously.

The room was set up with a bunch of computers around the outside of the room and several couches and a projection screen that they were playing some shooter game on. Noelle smirked as she finished killing Regent's character then turned to look at Charles, "I'm a gamer girl, that and Regent just sucks at the game when he's not cheating."

Regent snorted, "You're a brute, I couldn't cheat against you if I wanted to."

"Right, so Krause's cramp in his arm while he was playing you was just a coincidence?"

"I'm sticking with yes." He looked at Charles, "Do you want to try your luck?"

"Sure, why not?" Charles grinned and plopped down beside Noelle and accepted the controller from Regent.

Regent said, "Kick her ass."

Noelle snickered as their characters respawned, "Good luck with that."

Regent asked, "So what brings you by?"

"Well, I was coming by to offer some power upgrades and hang out more or less." Charles replied, examining the fighting game curiously as to the types of characters and checking out the move list. "It would help if I'd ever played this game before, but what the hell?"

The match was over quickly as Charles' character found himself hit with a ball of plasma that had came out of nowhere and exploded when Noelle shot it from half the map away.

Regent explained, "See what I mean? Fucking cheating."

Noelle set the controller down with a smile on her face, "So powers right?"

Charles chuckled and tugged her into his lap, tousling her hair playfully and massaging her scalp. "Yes, powers… brat."

"What are you offering?" Regent asked curiously.

"Well, one of the more fun ones is the so called Puppy package; so termed by my little sister. I'm prone to calling it the Maddy or Wolfblood package, depending on how much of a smartass I'm in the mood to be." Charles grinned and blew a raspberry on the side of Noelle's neck under her ear.

Noelle squeaked cutely and swatted at him. "Hey!"

"What does that do? I'd like a better power than causing someone to twitch in a fight."

"Allows you to transform into a rather large wolf if you want as well as coming with enhanced senses, strength, durability and speed as well as dexterity… Probably a Brute ranking of 4 or 5, with a Speedster rank of about the same… The other form is a wereform which is pretty much full on werewolf."

Regent exclaimed happily, "Hell yeah, downsides?"

"Hmmm, your senses will be giving you information your brain isn't ready to handle for a bit but other than that not much. You'll like meat a lot more, so I don't recommend it if you're a vegetarian. Oh, it also comes with regeneration. Oh, one other possible downside is my sister will probably pounce you like a rambunctious puppy at some point."

"I'll take it."

Noelle nodded, "I wouldn't mind better senses and the ability to turn into a wolf."

"What's going to be REALLY funny is when they realize I did it to Assault, Battery, Clockblocker and Gallant without them noticing…" Charles grinned wickedly.

Regent laughed, "That's amusing. Are you sure you're not a villain?"

Noelle shook her head, "Nah, we're vigilantes and bounty hunters, the pay is better."

"Oh, I also gave it to Panacea and Glory Girl… though they actually knew about it."

Regent sighed, "Great, that walking ball of destruction just got even scarier."

"Nah, she had more powerful stuff already… My sister just wanted other "puppies" to play with so I figured; why not? I also told Glory Girl that the catch was she got nominated to babysit." Charles grinned and tickled Noelle.

Regent laughed, "With you and your friend around, I'm glad I'm mostly out of the villain business."

"The villain business is one of those games that's a dying breed around Brockton Bay these days. It may be colder than I like it here, but for the moment it's home and I don't like asshats like the E88 and the AznBadboys and the Merchants… Especially dog fighting rings and forced prostitution and slavery." Charles buried his nose in the nape of Noelle's neck and grumbled.

Regent said, "Yeah but they had lots of money to rob when we hit them."

"Oh yeah, I know… they provided lots of our ready cash." Charles agreed, "at least until the bounty on the Slaughterhouse 9 clears."

"What do you think the chances of that are?"

"Really good unless they want me to tell the Wards I like and Assault and Battery to get out of the tower before I dose it with some LSD Grenades and go liberate the amount owed us out of their kit." Charles replied flatly.

Regent laughed, "I'm looking forward to helping take care of the rest of the gangs here. I might be white and I might be an ass but they take it to a whole new level."

Charles nodded and then focused where his nose was buried and a warm golden glow flowed into Noelle's neck. "Tada … oh, I also gave you general tinker powers with a bonus specialization from Squealer."

Noelle shivered a bit and snuggled back into his shoulder, "Thanks. That tickled, but it should help… Why do you keep tickling me anyway?" she poked him firmly in the ribs with her elbow.

"Because I can and it's fun?" Charles asked innocently.

She laughed, "It feels good not to worry about things…"

Charles extended his hand to Regent. "If you want the powers reach over here; I'm snuggling a pretty girl and too comfortable to move."

Regent took his hand with a laugh, "I understand."

Charles channeled the Wolfblood package into him as well as the tinker specialization and protected his mind. "Oh, I also threw in the basic shield and telepathy package for both of you… It doesn't really cover more than letting you know if danger is nearby or who's at the door but it's useful for stopping Masters and Strangers from fucking with your head."

"I have a fairly decent resistance against Masters anyway but every little bit helps." Regent replied, leaning back and working at getting used to his new senses.

"Enjoy your Tinker abilities as well." Charles grinned at Regent.

Regent smirked, "You're the best boss ever, you know that right?"

"Yep. Oh, and by the way … even if something disconnects you from your shard you'll still have all the powers my buddy and I gave you … so will your kids; that's another catch that I forgot to mention earlier… When you have kids you'll actually have puppies when they figure out how to shapechange."

Regent asked, "They'll get the same powers I have?"

"More or less; all the ones we've given you anyway." Charles replied with a shrug. "I figure eventually there's gonna be a substantial 'Puppy' population running around Brockton Bay. Then again, in the show they always got a raw deal. I figure they'll do better in this hellhole oddly enough."

"Think of it as a long term prank … I 'forgot' to tell anyone else about it." Charles chuckled with a grin.

Noelle laughed, "I can see that causing people some issues when they find out."

"Yeah … like when their kids start chewing on their dress shoes…" Charles snickered.

"That would do it."

Regent asked curiously, "Why share powers around other than the amusement factor?"

"Well… frankly because I can… two I like you guys… three, I gave the powers to my sister and she wants people to play with… Fourth and last… in the tv show I got the idea from the Wolfblood people always got a raw deal and I figured it's a good way to make people more durable and likely to survive that I actually like so why the hell not?" Charles mused thoughtfully.

"I guess that's as good a reason as any. I'm still a bit worried about using my ability to copy people. Even if Loki said it was fixed, he's calling himself Loki, how much can we really trust him?" Noelle grinned.

"Well, he wouldn't play tricks on you about your powers… That'd be a dick move and he'd get beaten about the head and shoulders by me… or worse. But now you'll have a method of defending yourself that doesn't involve your major powers if you get attacked anyway." Charles shrugged and ran his fingers through her hair.

Noelle shrugged, "I'm still a major class brute but yeah having more options is nice."

"Oh… hmmm… I forgot to offer this to Bitch… how would you like to fly?" Charles asked curiously as he gently squeezed Noelle.

Regent raised an eyebrow as he asked, "What's the catch?"

Noelle said, "Flying sounds fun."

"Hmmm… the catch is … no catch. It's more or less a great way to turn off lights if you don't want to get up or search the couch for missing controllers. Telekinesis is pretty great, and since it's been given to some of the Wards and also to Panacea and Glory Girl I figured why not?" Charles shrugged.

"In that case, hell yeah." Regent replied.

"Oh, and if you're cuddling Noelle and sitting on a chair made of TK energy you can make Trickster look like an idiot when he tries to teleport into your place." Charles grinned against her neck as he snickered.

Noelle smiled slightly, "He's still bitching about that. Don't get me wrong, he's got his good qualities but he's a bit….

Regent asked, "Of a jealous fuck?"

"Well, I was going to say a jealous ass but… if the shoe fits." Charles trailed off and with a grin against Noelle's neck.

Noelle sighed, "Yeah, I'm hoping he gets better."

"So I shouldn't give you a hickey right here under your ear?" Charles snickered as he nuzzled her neck.

"I doubt you can, regenerating brute but either way, probably not." Noelle smiled back at him.

"Hmmm, might be fun to try." Charles mused thoughtfully.

Regent snickered and shook his head. "The look on his face would be hilarious."

"I'd like to be able to fly."

With a nod Charles extended his hand to Regent and when he took it channeled the telekinesis power to each of them. "There you go, now you each have telekinesis. Which will enhance your brute rating a bit, probably speedster as well… and let you fly under your own power."

Regent smirked as he focused on a remote and slid it over to him, "Excellent. Bitch's dogs aren't the most comfortable ride in the world."

Charles laughed, "Well, they should be more symmetrical and actually still look like dogs when she uses her powers on them now. I fixed that too… Oh, do either of you want the ability to generate hard light stuff? I gave it to Bitch and I don't mind sharing it around either."

"I'm always willing to get more free powers."

"It'll allow you to generate costumes on the fly and absorb some damage … you can make weapons with it too if necessary though I've never tried making one with moving parts. Makes for a good sword though." Charles mused thoughtfully.

"I'll take it!" Regent exclaimed enthusiastically.

Noelle mused thoughtfully, "We could do some interesting live action movies with that ability, count me in."

"Oh! One last one since I offered it to Bitch… I can do body sculpting if either of you wants that." Charles finished as he channeled the hard light powers to the two of them. "I really should make a list instead of just mentioning this stuff off the top of my head."

"My identity isn't public but my family isn't the nicest around on the other hand I'm damned sexy, let me think about that one."

Charles nodded, "No rush. I already did some on Noelle before, but then again her monstrous side had pretty much screwed up her legs and lower body."

Noelle muttered, "Not the best look really, more like a bad raid boss."

"Do you like how you look now? Did I get things right; I'm pretty sure I did a good job, but I'm not sure on the details… then again I never saw you naked before I pulled you out of the monster and just went with 'hot teenager'." Charles snickered.

"Yep and thanks." Noelle said with the beginning of a dark blush.

Regent said, "I approve of hot naked teenage girls."

"Anyone that says you have the body of a teenager is right come to think of it…" Charles mused thoughtfully. "Huh… I wonder if I can get rid of the need for Jess to have physical therapy?"

Noelle shook her head, "Considering she's been in a wheelchair a long time I expect that she'd have to do some of it regardless."

"Well, we healed her which is something at least. I think I could probably mentally give her the information on how to walk and stuff though…" Charles rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Ah well, can't think of everything on the first try."

"It's probably worth a try." Regent briefly considered offering to walk her about with his power then decided that traumatizing the girl wouldn't help in the long run.

Charles stood up and playfully slung Noelle over his shoulder and proceeded to wander toward Coil's old office; "Time to go visit Lisa and Jess."

"Hey! I can walk you know?" Noelle shrieked and playfully beat on his back and shoulders with her tiny fists.

Regent laughed as he followed them to Lisa's office.


	8. Chapter 8

Lisa looked up from her paperwork as the others entered her office, "Having fun?"

"Yep! I caught one." Charles grinned.

Jess smiled over at Noelle and Charles from where she was walking in between two handrails. "So I see."

"Now I just have to figure out what to do with her…" Charles smirked and tickled the back of Noelle's knee causing her to squeak and swat him again.

"Whatever she wants really. I know I've said it before but thanks for helping us."

Lisa grinned, "Speaking of help, Coil had a decent amount of money so we should be set until things calm down a bit."

"Cool… I'm the friendly neighborhood powers purveyor today…" Charles said, setting Noelle down on a TK couch floating in midair and wandering over to Jess. "Speaking of, lemme see those pins." Charles picked Jess up around her waist and propped her legs up on one of the handrails with her back against his chest.

Lisa raised an eyebrow, "I thought that was your friend's gig?"

"I told you before I'm like Eidolon with a shattered limiter; I figured he was overworked and underpaid so I figured out how to give powers to people and adjust shards while I was at it." Charles replied as he focused his powers into Jess' legs one at a time while running his hands down from her hips.

Jess asked, "You know you healed them the other day right?"

"Yep, now I'm testing responses to see how well your nerves are catching on to what your legs are telling them to see if I can't shorten your physical therapy period."

"Ah, in that case carry on." Jess chuckled, "I was just wondering if you were feeling me up for a reason."

Lisa asked, "So what powers are you offering?"

Charles snickered and focused on the nerves, "Hmmm, which of you two girls can strut better?" he asked Lisa and Noelle curiously.

Regent smirked, "That's not a no."

Noelle pointed at Lisa, "Probably her."

Lisa grinned, "I can dance."

"What kind of dancing?" Charles asked curiously, looking at her over Jess' shoulder.

"The fancy kind."

"Then c'mere and lemme see your legs." Charles grinned at her.

Lisa rolled her eyes and moved over so that Charles could examine her legs. "Fine."

Charles reached down with one hand while still holding Jess braced against his chest with one arm around her waist and ran his hand down each of Lisa's legs from hip to foot as well. "Hmmm… I think I can do this. Lisa, can I borrow your memories of walking and dancing too?"

Lisa took a deep breath then let it out. "Sure."

Charles gently entered Lisa's mind and copied her knowledge over to Jess then set to work teaching the nerves how they were supposed to respond to stimulus and shored up the muscles to match Lisa's in the appropriate spots before setting Jess down. "Okay! That should do it, I hope. I've never fixed paralysis before." he said as he stepped back but stayed close enough to catch her if she started to fall.

Jess grabbed one of the handrails and took a couple of steps then realized that her legs were actually working. "That's just strange. A good type of strange." She took a couple more steps then let go of the handrail and took a couple more steps. "I could get used to this."

Regent said, "Good because you're far too pretty to be stuck in a chair all the time."

"See, I felt you both up for a reason." Charles grinned wickedly and walked over to snuggle Noelle on the TK couch.

Lisa grinned, "What upgrades can we snag today?"

"Okay… in order… I think." Charles mumbled… "Actually, why don't one of you two tell them what I offered while I sit here and ponder amusing things. Like giving Noelle hickeys."

Noelle swatted him playfully and said, "Strength, dexterity, the ability to turn into a wolf, hard light abilities and telekinesis." She lifted herself off the TK couch then set herself back down.

Regent smirked, "Don't forget the extra senses."

Noelle replied, "Mine were already good."

Lisa said, "Count me in."

Jess nodded, "That sounds good."

"Oh, I also offered body sculpting and something else… But it's probably unimportant, I fixed Jess' legs… which was the important part that I did before but didn't think of how to do it right the first time." Charles mused.

"It's fine, you fixed them. Even therapy would have fixed them the rest of the way." Jess was just happy not to have to go through more physical therapy.

"Well, if you two ladies would walk over here I'll give you the puppy package; which should result in a brute and speedster rating of 4 or 5 on it's own and comes with sensory enhancements and the ability to change into wolves, and a werewolf form… Telekinesis which will boost both the brute and speedster ratings and allow you to fly… and a mental shielding and minor telepathy thing… Plus the hard light projections." Charles said from where he reclined comfortably behind Noelle.

Lisa said, "I've already got telepathy but the rest sounds good." as she walked over to the TK couch.

Jess moved over to the couch as well.

Charles grinned and reached for the two of them and after touching them channeled the necessary powers into them. "There you go… Two genetic upgrade packages, installed free of charge. Though you may get conned into babysitting."

Lisa blinked, "Wait genetic? As in our children will get these abilities?"

"Yup." Charles smirked at her over Noelle's shoulder.

Jess stated, "Good."

"Far as I know every upgrade Loki or I have done is coded in your genetics; so expect your kids to be fun rugrats to corral." Charles replied as he propped his chin on Noelle's arm to look at them comfortably. "Telekinesis is great for furniture but girls are the best pillows." he said as he shot a glance at Regent.

Trickster blinked as he caught the last part of Charles' explanation about children and powers as he walked into Lisa's office with Grue. "What's this about children?"

Charles looked at him innocently, "Noelle and I are expecting." he deadpanned seriously.

Trickster twitched before he remembered what Lisa said about their new boss, "Right… so… what the fuck man?"

Charles rolled over to give Lisa a look, "What did you tell him? His last reaction was so much more amusing!"

Lisa smirked, "Just that you have a warped sense of humor and that Noelle can jump kick him out of the county."

"Ah." Charles shrugged and rolled around so he was sitting up with his back propped against Noelle's looking at Grue and Trickster. "We were discussing how the new powers were genetic not attached to a shard."

"That would be useful…" He sighed, "I'd rather not mention this because he's an ass and almost got us killed but we've got a former teammate that could use rescuing if you want to help." He really didn't want to deal with Cody but he knew that leaving him behind bothered Noelle so he figured he'd at least ask about it.

"Cody?" Charles asked curiously.

"Yeah, he mouthed off to Accord and we washed our hands of it rather than get killed, we sort of owe him."

"Which one is Accord? I'm shit with names most of the time." Charles replied.

Lisa said, "Obsessive compulsive fuck that thinks he's better at planning than he is."

Jess said, "He's a villain in Boston."

"Okay… hmmm… got any pictures of the area or anything?" Charles asked, "also, is Cody trustworthy?"

Trickster snorted, "Fuck no."

Jess sighed, "Maybe."

Noelle shrugged ruefully, "He used to be part of the gaming group but…"

"He wasn't putting in the time and got upset about Trickster joining, none of that means he should get stuck with the Yangban though. I should have a couple of pictures on my cellphone."

"Well, I don't know who the Yangban are; but I'm not particularly inclined to leave him to rot if he was your friend… or well… anyone really. The reason I asked if he was trustworthy is we kinda have a lot of secrets floating around here." Charles replied.

Lisa said, "The Yangban are an Asian super group that has the powers of all of the members at a lesser strength."

"Hmmm… well shit… that's neat… we'll need to get Loki in on this; I mean … hmm… What are they doing in Boston and how did they get a hold of Cody?" Charles asked confusedly.

Trickster said, "They aren't in Boston Accord just sold him to them after basically saying that if we didn't give him up he'd have us killed. The guy is twitchy and obsessive."

"Huh… I guess I can teleport to Cody then back out to someplace in Boston? If he's not trustworthy I'd rather not bring him into our base." Charles mused thoughtfully.

Trickster nodded, "That would be appreciated; I don't like the guy, he did too many stupid things once we got here but we were a team."

Jess sighed, "I have to agree, he touched Noelle even after he knew what it would do. That takes a certain amount of stupidity but he didn't deserve to get kidnapped."

"Okay; Grue and Trickster come over here…" Charles said, waving them forward. "Well, if you want new powers anyway."

Lisa said, "Go for it."

Trickster asked, "What type?"

"Well, the Puppy package gives enhanced senses, strength, durability and speed. Roughly equal to a brute and speedster ranking of 4 or 5… and allows you to shape shift into a wolf and werewolf form and gives a certain amount of regeneration… Telekinesis will allow you to fly and make your own invisible furniture… and add to the brute and speedster rankings…The hard light manipulation power will allow you to make your own costumes out of nothing and provide you with weapons when necessary… The last one is mental shielding that will definitely hinder any Masters or Strangers from harassing you along with some basic telepathy that is basically good for helping avoid attacks or knowing who is outside your door." Charles listed off. "Oh, and I'll also offer body sculpting, even if you aren't as pretty and I don't really want to run my hands all over you."

Grue snorted, "I think I'll pass on that last one but the others sound good."

Trickster nodded, "Same."

"Lemme see your hands then." Charles replied, offering his hand to the two of them.

Trickster and Grue held out their hands and were soon given a handshake that conducted a gold light from Charles into them. "Tada, it's done… You may be henceforth pounced by my hyperactive sister or asked to babysit same. Oh! Speaking of, Grue I'll give your sister the same powers if you or she wants. I also offer mind healing, but that'll have to wait until I break Cody out - that takes time."

Grue considered, "That would keep her safe from my Mom's idiot boyfriend, I'll give her a call."

"I'll also pull strings and get you full custody if you want." Charles said with a firm nod.

"That would be good." Grue nodded.

"Plenty of room down here anyway." Charles mused.

Lisa smirked, "It's a great base."

"Okay folks, the joke's a bit thin in here… My name is Charles and I don't normally look quite this Scandinavian." He dropped the hard light disguise and shook his ponytail out. "The Thor look is great and all but that's just one example of the hard light disguises I've been using."

Regent said, "It's useful."

"Very, I've played pranks on lots of the Protectorate capes and the Wards with it." Charles shrugged.

Lisa smirked, "All in good fun. What's your friend's name?"

"That's up to him to reveal." Charles shrugged. "I'm tired of holding up a disguise all the time when I'm around you guys though. Plus smelling my own breath because my face is underneath the hard light was getting old."

Grue laughed, "A bike helmet isn't much better."

"I know, I used to race dirt bikes and after a long race I tossed my helmet as quick as I could get away with it." Charles replied.

Charles pulled out his cellphone and called Mist.

Mist opened his cell and answered, "What's up?"

"You ready to declare war on Communist China? Or at least the Chinese capes part of it?"

"The Yangban?"

"Them's the ones. They kidnap people and Noelle would appreciate if we rescued Cody… The rest of them kinda would too." Charles replied.

Mist laughed, "I can imagine. I'm up for helping take them out as I don't really care for slavers or Chinese nutjobs."

"I figure we teleport in, I put them all to sleep and make them forget that they have sphincters to control their bladders and their shitpipes and you steal the neat powers from the ones who are around and then we spring Cody, I break the brainwashing on his mind and then we drop him off in Boston… The rest of the prisoners we spring too if we can manage it." Charles continued.

"I'm game, I'm not sure how willing the rest will be but we can relocate them and let someone else sort things out. Without their powers they shouldn't be too hard to deal with."

"Think we can give them to the Protectorate?"

"They would blame us, I think we should just drop them off in some Chinese town or something or you can ask where they want to go."

"The kidnappees or the kidnappers?" Charles asked curiously.

"The kidnappees, the people in charge can rot there or rot in a Russian prison for all I care."

"Right, well I figured we'd let the kidnappees keep their powers and break the brainwashing and deliver them to the Protectorate or something so THEY could figure out where they should go."

"Ah, yeah. I'm only interested in three powers. The one that lets them build Earthen structures, the one that lets them split powers to groups and the one that lets them boost powers. Without those three the group is pretty much dead."

"Yep… which means no more kidnapping and brainwashing other capes. Which cleans up this shitty world a bit." Charles muttered.

"Considering they don't really have a hope in hell of killing an Endbringer with the tactics they're using? Yeah no. I'm ready to go whenever."

Charles nodded and teleported in to grab him.

"So, who are we taking?"

"You and Me? I mean, it's a quick smash and grab sorta thing." Charles replied.

"That works. Ninja? I mean ninja are Japanese it should tick them off that much more..."

Panacea blinked and looked over at them. "Umm, are you doing something I shouldn't be hearing?"

Mist blinked, "Ah, we're sort of jumping across the world and freeing a kidnap victim and making sure that that crap doesn't happen again. But yeah, technically we're probably breaking a couple of dozen laws but it's for a good cause, honest."

Panacea blinked again. "I don't think I even want to know."

Charles grinned and tousled her hair. "We'll tell you all about it when we get back."

Riley glared firmly at Mist. "You bring my brother back in one piece, got me?"

"They've got nothing that can kill him as far as I know but I'll make sure that he comes back."

Charles reached over and grabbed Mist and teleported them back to the other base. "Hi guys, got the picture we need?" he asked, looking around.

Jess showed them a picture of Cody on her phone, "Here."

Charles examined it closely, rubbing his chin thoughtfully before making the two of them hard light ninja suits in dark red with swords and throwing stars and all sorts of stabbity pokery implements hanging within easy reach.

Mist laughed, "Perfect."

"Times like these makes me wish we had Cerebro… Hmmm, remind me to build one when we get back… Steal any Tinker powers from these bad guys too." Charles said to Mist as he reached over and grabbed his shoulder and teleported them to Cody.

~#~Scene Break~#~

Mist looked around as they found themselves in a barracks right next to a cot with a white guy and a dozen Asians scattered around the room. He reached out and stole Cody's power then reached out and stole everyone's power in the room just to be on the safe side, stuffing them all into Charles as he did so.

Cody stared in surprise as a dozen multi colored sparks flew through the air. "What the hell?"

Mist said, "Noelle sends her regards. Where are the leaders?"

"Noelle?"

"Where are the leaders? We don't have that much time here."

"Down the way... "

"Excellent." Mist turned to look at Charles, "Do you want to haul everyone out of here? While I find the leaders of the group?"

"Wouldn't it be easier if I just put the whole place to sleep except Cody then we figure out what to do next?" Charles asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Details."

Charles focused, raising a pair of fingers to his right temple and suddenly the snores of everyone in the room deepened and solidified and a pair of thuds were heard from outside the room when the two guards fell over. "Tada… Everyone here except us is now snoozing thoroughly. Is there a tinker lab here?" he turned and raised an eyebrow at him.

Cody stared in surprise at Charles, "Damn that's impressive."

"Ah sheynem dank."

Mist headed out the door and stalked toward the particular powers he could sense that he wanted to steal, though he also grabbed powers from every guard in his path and most of the capes they ran into.

Charles wandered along behind Mist, swiping anything that looked neat and stuffing it all into a pocket that in no way could possibly hold any of it.

Cody might have been a dick but he wasn't stupid. The two unknown capes had managed to get into the complex somehow and they were probably his best chance of getting out so he decided to ask his questions afterwards and follow along quietly.

It took a surprisingly short time to rip open the door and steal the powers from the leaders. The most time was spent rounding everyone up for transport (and looting the enemy Tinker's lab of course and no one had any idea how Charles fit any of that stuff in a pocket designed to hold a couple of quarters or a cigarette lighter). Mist scowled slightly as he looked at the powerless people sprawled over the floor in the cafeteria. "Are we sorting them here?"

"Sure, sounds good to me." Charles replied, reading the minds of the various people and working at figuring out where each of them needed to go… As well as a person or place he could teleport them to and drop them off. It took a while, but eventually all of them save Cody had been dropped off with their powers reinstalled and their brainwashing broken though not by Mist.

Mist asked, "Now that we've looted everything, we should probably leave."

"Well, everything interesting." Charles amended.

"Good point."

Cody asked, "Who?" He shook his head, "How?"

"Who is the Doctor. How is … teleport. When is now. Night night." Charles waved his hand and dropped Cody into the arms of Morpheus.

Mist laughed, "Okay, that was amusing. Should we send him to Boston? I wouldn't mind going to Boston actually. I want to find some of the Adepts so I can get a look at Swoop's power. He's the guy that grants pyrokinesis and fire immunity to his birds."

"Okay, I know what a part of Boston looks like well enough to teleport there. I was thinking Boston is better than taking him to Brockton Bay… Should I give him a duplicate of his power back before we dump him off?" Charles mused thoughtfully.

"Yeah, it might give him enough power to kill Accord and he deserves the chance. He's got a better shot with his power."

Charles shrugged and gave Cody's power back before dropping him off at the church featured in the Boondock Saint's movie in one of the back pews and covering him up with a blanket and teleporting the two of them to the outside of the church. "Okay, we're in Boston and we need to swap out our disguises - any ideas?"

"Pirates? Or we could go with generic hillbillies or Asian thugs."

Charles huffed and disguised the pair of them as the MacManus brothers.

"That works." Mist frowned slightly as he stretched his awareness out looking for someone with bird control powers. He pointed to the north, "That way."

Charles shrugged and started flying in that direction. "Why are we finding this bird brain anyway and who is he?"

"Local villain, they aren't horrible but he's got a power that lets his birds get powers. I want the template so that I can improve Skitter's power. I mean fire using wasps…. Fuck, why are we doing this again?"

"That has all my nope…" Charles glared over at Mist.

"Flaming fire wielding puppies?"

"That's better than wasps! But anything is better than wasps that are on fire and not getting dead from it." Charles replied flatly.

"I guess you have a point, still it's something interesting and we're already halfway there."

"Sometimes interesting does not mean good." Charles replied and continued onward.

"Just think of the fun your sister could have controlling birds." Mist smirked as he continued onward toward the bar he could see in the distance.

Charles glared at him. "You give her the power to control flying shit machines and we will have words buddy. Words like 'will you go to the drugstore and pick me up some depends?' and 'when will you let me remember that I have sphincter valves in my penis and butthole so I don't need adult diapers?'"

Mist snorted, "Why the fuck do you think I took Blank and the other mind block perk?" He sighed, "But yeah seriously I think Imp would have far more use for flying shit factories, especially if we created birds using some of the enhancements from Gregor so they can make special shit…" He broke into laughter, "Shit, you actually believed that I'd do that didn't you?"

"Imma stab you."

"Later." Mist grinned as he landed on the sidewalk and walked over to the large burly man guarding the door.

"Password?"

"Spine."

The man snorted, "That's not the password."

Mist glared at the guard, "I'll rip out your fucking spine if you don't let me in."

The man glanced at the crack in the sidewalk where Mist had landed then opened the door, "Have a good day, sir."

Mist glanced up at Charles, "Coming?"

"Sure." Charles followed along with Mist.

Mist walked into the bar/club/illegal casino and looked around until he saw his target. He frowned, "What the hell?" He looked at the waitress that had bird control powers, 'That's not Swoop… fucking hell.' He frowned, "Do you remember where the Adepts are?"

"Ummm… not really… I don't recall them mentioned anywhere." Charles replied.

"Fuck…" Mist examined the power then shrugged, "Okay, apparently this is the wrong city."

Charles rubbed his forehead. "Okay, we'll have Lisa look into it or something." Charles said and grabbed Mist and teleported them back to Coil's repurposed base.

Lisa asked, "How did it go?"

Mist glanced between Noelle and Lisa, "The first part went fine, we got Cody out, stole the two main powers that made the gang work and stole the powers from the cape that build bases. Then we sent the rest of them home after my buddy here erased some brainwashing."

Noelle asked, "What about Cody?"

"We dropped him at a church in Boston, then we headed back here… end of story."

"Except he's leaving out the part where we didn't find the right bird brain."

"Yeah well fuck off, I remembered what his powers were. Fuck if I remembered the city, I mean shit it could have been Boston. Maybe it was New York, what's the fucking difference? They're both on the East Coast."

Charles patted him on the back gently. "There, there… They're both in Yankee land, I understand it's just turrible that you didn't remember where the bird man was." Charles chuckled. "The trip took all of ten minutes, who cares?"

Mist sighed, "I guess…"

Lisa asked, "Who were you looking for?"

"Felix Swoop, he's part of the Adepts."

Lisa smirked, "New York."

"Next time."

Noelle asked, "How was he?"

Mist replied, "He was a bit surprised to be rescued, we told him you're responsible for it. Hopefully, he'll figure things out from there and not cause trouble for us here."

"I also told him that Who was the Doctor… So maybe he'll go searching for Doctor Who." Charles grinned.

Noelle snorted, "Probably not as we're from Earth Aleph and he's a fictional character there."

Lisa shrugged, "Here as well though there hasn't been anything decent in years."

Charles huffed, "Oh well, it was still funny."

~#~Scene Break~#~

Riley asked, "So, what happened? I want details."

"I explained the last time." Mist said as he headed toward the kitchen to grab a slice of pizza.

Charles chuckled and plopped down on the couch pulling her into his lap. "Well, it was a daring rescue…"

Riley huffed and raised one elegant eyebrow.

"Okay, okay… We teleported to the guy we were supposed to save… I knocked everyone else out, we looted it to the bedrock… The kidnappers who worked for China will forever be in adult diapers because I made them forget that they had urinary sphincter valves and anal sphincter valves and he stole their powers." Charles grinned at her.

"Gross!" Riley shuddered. "Maybe next time I'll remember before I ask, that some things are better left unsaid."

Charles tousled her hair playfully.

Mist stuck a couple of slices of pizza in the microwave.

Panacea mused thoughtfully, "There are worse things that he could do. A couple of tweaks and you're pissing red for years."

Riley looked at Panacea, "Really?"

"I wasn't going to do it but my power tells me things… So anyways, what happened next?"

"I read the minds of the kidnappees and teleported them home, minus one I delivered to Boston as he didn't have a residence other than 'Boston'. Then we left a bunch of incontinent former capes laying in their very soiled bedding asleep and came home."

"Is this going to be on the news?"

"Probably not. China doesn't want their kidnapping capers made public, most likely. But it should be… I could go grab the Chinese nationals in question and deliver them to the Protectorate… but they're very ripe and smelly by now and I don't really want to." Charles grinned at Panacea.

"I know nothing… for the best that way. Do you need someone to work in your clinic? Riley and I were thinking about it and I wouldn't mind some extra spending money."

Mist grabbed his plate and headed back out to the living room.

"Sure, but I was planning on offering body modifications as well as healing and I dunno how comfortable you might be with that." Charles replied.

"It would be something different and as long as they sign off on it, I'm okay with it. I've put people's hearts back in their chest and fixed smiles before for people with issues." Panacea replied.

"Okay then, tentatively … as in when the PRT pays us for the Slaughterhouse 9 you two can have a job." Charles chuckled and shook his head.

Riley raised both arms over her head and cheered, "Yes!"

Mist asked, "Has Selena come out of her lab yet?"

"Nope, she's working on something she called a Wraith Starship."

Mist's eyes went wide and only his telekinesis kept his plate from hitting the ground as he rushed to get to the lab.

"It's all his fault." Charles declared firmly and cuddled Riley.

Panacea laughed after he left the room, "That was mean."

"She told me to." Riley smiled.

Charles tickled Riley playfully.

Mist walked back out of the lab and over to his pizza, "You're all evil."

Panacea laughed, "Selena is the practical joker."

"Forgive me for worrying about evil bio ships and space vampires." Mist grumbled as he started working on his pizza and tried to ignore Selena's laughter coming from the lab.


	9. Chapter 9

Mist glanced away from Armsmaster and over at the collection of Wards that were assembled in the convention hall they had rented for the day. "Okay, I've got 10 power upgrades left today, my friend here can do additional upgrades as Clockblocker and Gallant already know."

Charles waggled his fingers at the group of Wards, rolling a cigar around in his mouth and grinning at them. "Hi."

Armsmaster stated, "We ran tests on Clockblocker and Gallant, everything has came up safe so far. Remember that acquiring new powers is completely voluntary. That said, the Protectorate is going to be pushing the Empire 88 rather hard over the next couple of weeks and you're bound to face the backlash from our attempts to clean up the city. Having more powers will hopefully help keep you safe." He'd went over the data with Dragon enough that he was fairly sure that they were on the level.

"There are six wards which means that everyone is going to get a power and Vista gets two because she's just that awesome." Mist smirked.

Charles chuckled at the comment about Vista, using psychokinesis to light his cigar. "She is the cutest one. Maybe we should kidnap her and give her to Sif."

Mist laughed, "Nah, we just need to tell her about the endless chocolate machine and she'll kidnap herself."

Vista decided not to protest as they hadn't called her a kid. She glanced at Armsmaster then back at the man that looked a bit like Loki without the goofy helmet. "Where do we start?"

Mist looked over at Charles, "We might as well start with what Thor can give you then take it from there."

Shadow Stalker stayed quiet as she watched the two strangers that were offering powers.

Charles grinned and clapped his hands together and rubbed them like Mr. Burns from the Simpsons. "Excellent! Now to the laboratory!"

Kid Win asked nervously, "Laboratory?"

Mist shook his head, "I'm fairly sure he's joking."

Gallant snorted as he could sense the amusement rolling off the Thor look-alike, "He is or at least he's amused as all hell."

Charles grinned, "Did I take any of you others to a laboratory?"

Clockblocker shook his head, "Nope, thanks for the shape changing power by the way."

"Wonder if Assault and Battery have redefined doggystyle yet?" Charles mused thoughtfully.

Armsmaster kept himself from smirking by a small margin, "That would explain why he was calling her Puppy and she was hitting him today."

Charles grinned and waggled his fingers toward Vista. "Okay, lets start with the munchkin."

Vista blushed but decided not to state that she wasn't a kid as they were giving her powers and he was being nice. "I'll go first."

Charles reached out and tousled her hair channeling powers into her. "Okay, one puppy package… mental blockers… everyone likes to fly so telekinesis… hmmm… anything else you think?" he looked over at Loki curiously as he playfully worked his fingers in Vista's hair, just to see what she'd do.

Vista giggled slightly as her hair was tousled, sure he was treating her like a kid but it wasn't so bad as he hadn't told her she shouldn't be a hero.

Mist shuddered slightly as he thought about the young teenager out on patrol. "Adaptive regeneration?"

"What's that when it's at home? The puppy package already comes with regeneration…" Charles replied. "Hmmm; Panacea is overworked and underpaid so you can have healing too I think."

Vista grinned, "I'll take it."

"Good, because I can't remove it and I already gave it to you." Charles said as he used his electrokinesis to move her hair around as he pulled his fingers out, making it stand up and wave in the air.

Vista reached up and tried to push her hair back down much to Clockblocker's amusement.

Armsmaster said, "Having another healer on the team will be nice."

Mist said, "What about the nullification power? That's battlefield support but it goes with her role quite nicely."

'Which nullification power?' Charles sent via telepathy curiously.

"The one that stabilizes things. Warms things up if they're cold, cools things down if they're hot and a couple of other useful things."

"Oh, sure… she can have that too." Charles reached over and poked her forehead and channeled the power into her, the glow flowing from his hand down into her forehead.

Mist gestured at the marker near the whiteboard and started writing the powers from the puppy package on the board. "I suggest the teleportation power that lets her visualize the location and teleport herself or others there."

Vista grinned, "That would be awesome!"

Armsmaster's customary scowl fled his face as he thought about a whole team of super powered Wards.

Charles channeled the teleportation power into Vista as well, shrugging.

Mist asked, "Force fields?"

"She does have to learn how to work all this stuff and get used to being able to use it. Overwhelming her with everything I can give her all at once may not be a good idea." Charles replied. "Too many options can be just as bad as too few."

Mist sighed, "That's a good point, I guess we can test that power on someone else."

Vista said, "I'm pretty happy with what you've already given me."

Mist looked over at Shadow Stalker, "You, I need to fix."

Charles sat back on nothing, floating in midair and smoked his cigar nonchalantly while watching the Wards curiously and also wondering when Vista would realize that touching her hair to something metal would make it lay back down.

Shadow Stalker frowned, "What do you mean?"

"Your shard is fucked up and is causing you some mental issues." Mist stated firmly.

Armsmaster frowned, "What do you mean?"

"I mean that her shard influences her behavior. I should be able to fix it with a bit of a tweak."

"It also caused a lot of damage and encouraged her to react very poorly to stimuli… Nothing unheard of for parahumans unfortunately. Triggering is traumatic and certain shards are worse than others about how much mental scarring they bring with them." Charles replied, puffing away and channeling the smoke into amusing shapes; starting with a full fledged naval battle between a pirate ship and a British ship.

Shadow Stalker frowned as she thought about the last couple of days and how much less rage she had at the world. She really didn't want to go back to that and she could already feel her new calm slipping away. "Fix it."

Mist reached out and pulled Shadow Stalker's power and shard out of her then destroyed the shard and tossed the power orb to Charles. "Here. That should let you copy her power."

Charles caught the orb and absorbed it, motioning Shadow Stalker over. "C'mere, I'll check and make sure the work I did the last time I saw you is still holding and the shard hasn't screwed you up again in the meantime."

Shadow Stalker blinked. "I don't think we've met before?" she asked as she walked over somewhat warily. Not having her powers made her feel naked and vulnerable.

"We haven't… but your mind was screaming in agony to those with the senses to notice so I did a patch job the last time we were in the same area. That part didn't require physical contact." Charles said as he reached over and gently touched her forehead, returning her old powers and giving her the puppy package and mental blockers as well as telekinesis. "For now, I've given you the puppy package, mental shields and telekinesis. When we've made sure everything is stable and there isn't going to be any more damage uncovered from your shard, we'll go from there."

Shadow Stalker nodded, "Thank you."

Armsmaster made a mental note to schedule Shadow Stalker for more therapy, maybe this time she'd actually take it seriously.

Mist asked, "Do we have more volunteers?"

Kid Win stepped forward, "I'll go."

Charles chuckled and touched his forehead, sending forth the puppy package, telekinesis, mind shields and Squealer's specialization and improved tinkering abilities along with the force field ability. "Okay, you get to test out the force fields… and I improved your tinkering abilities and gave you the puppy package and telekinesis. Oh … I fixed that math thing too."

Kid Win's eyes lit up, "Thank you!"

Mist looked at Aegis, "You're up next."

Aegis said, "Yes sir."

Charles reached over and poked Aegis, giving him the puppy package, telekinesis, mind shields and Panacea's healing ability. "There you go; one puppy package, telekinesis, mind shields and another duplicate of Panacea's healing ability. You're tough as hell already so you'll probably still be standing if healing is necessary after a battle."

"Thank you and that should help keep my friends safe."

Mist grinned, "I guess my turn, I can give you most powers that you could come up with. Let's start with Vista first."

Vista asked, "How about the ability to survive in space? I mean it would be fun teleporting around the solar system."

Mist frowned as he considered the idea and how exactly he wanted to pull it off. "I should be able to do that. Do you want to be able to generate air filled force fields or do you just want to not need air?"

Vista glanced at the other wards, "Would the air filled force fields help against things like smoke or diving under water?"

"Don't see why not."

Clockblocker grinned, "That's awesome."

"In that case, I'll take that option." Vista replied.

"I guess you get force fields after all." Mist smiled as he generated an orb and tossed it to Vista. "Stay safe."

Vista smiled as a faint blue colored force field sprung up around her. "It works."

"Of course it works." Mist replied then looked at Gallant, "You're next Gallant."

Gallant pulled out a list, "Maybe a Tinker ability?"

Mist asked, "Do you have any particular specialty in mind?"

"I can handle that; huh, maybe I should have asked you folks if you had any wants before I started giving out powers." Charles said thoughtfully. "Come on over here."

"Not really." Gallant replied as he walked over to Charles.

Charles reached over and poked him in the forehead, transferring the tinker abilities with a nice golden glow effect.

Mist glanced around the room, "That should be everyone. Have fun with Armsmaster's tests."

Charles looked over at Armsmaster, "Well, unless he volunteers."

Armsmaster considered his options then decided that he was already going to get screamed at by his bosses so he might as well make it worth it. "I'll volunteer."

"Okay then, what do you want? I can't quite recall your power set at the moment so I can't really tailor anything to cover weak points." Charles said, leaning back on the table and relaxing… "I don't really have a method of giving you a power that would say to your boss 'Go away and leave me alone, I'm working here and you bother me.' however."

Mist asked, "Maybe a stranger effect?"

Armsmaster smiled slightly, "That might be nice but I'd rather have something that would let me go without sleep or be tough enough to fight Behemoth."

Mist sighed, "That last one requires a lot of power, that first one is easy."

"The puppy package would give you a decent brute and speedster rating as well as shape changing but it's not on an Endbringer's level." Charles mused thoughtfully.

"Can I have both?"

"I'm fine with that. If you give him the package I'll add the no sleep bit on top." Mist figured that adding more regeneration and tweaking it would let Armsmaster go without sleep quite easily.

"I don't mind giving you the puppy package… I've given it to everyone else I think." Charles chuckled.

Armsmaster walked over and stood in front of Charles.

Charles reached over and touched his forehead and channeled the ability into him.

Mist conjured a power orb, adjusted it for regeneration so that Armsmaster wouldn't need sleep and tossed it at him. "There we go. That should be everyone."

Charles looked around, "We're all out of someone elses so it'd pretty much have to be everyone wouldn't it? Insofar as everyone here?" He grinned.

Clockblocker grinned, "Thanks again. Being able to control how long things are frozen for is great."

Mist looked at Charles, "Right... let's head back before Sif builds something she shouldn't."

"Sounds like the thing to do to me… Her building crazy stuff is sorta par for the course though. I still don't know why she wanted all those gerbils." Charles mused thoughtfully.

Armsmaster muttered under his breath, "Gerbils…" as he tried to figure out why someone would want them or what they could do with them.

"She was working on some type of cellphone with Deus Ex Machina on the side." Mist shook his head, "it's probably better not to ask." Charles reached over and grabbed his shoulder and teleported them out.

Clockblocker asked, "Does that disturb anyone else as much as it does me?"

Vista shook her head, "Nope, I've got new abilities I want to test out."

Armsmaster stated firmly, "In the lab."

~#~Scene Break~#~

Charles immediately plopped down on the couch and ordered deep dish supreme pizza and a 12 pack of Coke to be delivered to the hotel. "Okay, so … we did that… we need surveillance in Piggot's office. Watching her have an aneurism would be amusing."

"We could always give Lisa that ability, I'm sure she'd get a kick out of it. Either that or we give her the ability to place phase cloaked cameras in places and network with them like Skitter and her bugs. Do you think that would work? Maybe a power to create them and a power to control them?"

"It certainly sounds amusing… to the lab!" Charles chuckled. "You get to pick up the pizza in the lobby."

Mist muttered, "Tinkers."

Riley pouted, "Hey. We're not all that bad."

Mist looked over at the couch where Riley was playing a video game. "Selena likes making things that do bad things to physics in dark alleys, Charles makes power packages based on British television that's rated to be watchable by 7 year olds and you build things having to do with Chocolate that shouldn't exist… so yes, I stand by my statement on Tinkers." He smiled at her, "I've got a question."

"What's that?"

"How would you like the power to teleport an Endbringer to the moon?"

"Any particular reason you want them on the moon?" Riley asked curiously.

"Well, technically I only want Leviathan on the moon as he makes water but it could be interesting to see what happened if we tossed Behemoth there as well."

"Makes water… oh." She giggled, "That could be a fun experiment."

"See, Tinkers." Mist chuckled.

Riley looked at Mist and pouted, "That's not fair, that was your idea!"

"So, are you in?"

"Hell yeah."

Mist grinned as he conjured a power orb and tossed it at Riley and another two to further upgrade her teleportation power. "That should do it, just don't teleport the base to the moon. I'd rather not have to check how well a resurrection power works."

Riley blinked, "Wait, is that possible?"

Mist sighed, "Crap, that's going to cause all sorts of issues isn't it?"

"Riley! You aren't allowed to teleport anything to the moon without asking ME first! You are not allowed to listen to Selena or Mist without double checking!" Charles called from his lab. "Oh, we should go into the communications business; we pay Riley a decent sum to teleport satellites into position instead of using rockets… huh… maybe spaceflight too…" Mist and Riley could hear the squeak of whiteboards and markers pick up the pace from the open door of the lab.

Riley asked, "How much do you think I'd make?"

"At least double your current allowance."

Riley grinned, "Cool. So can I get the ability to bring people back from the dead?"

Charles thumped his head against the wall in the other room, repeatedly from the sounds of things and sent telepathically back to Mist, 'I thought we were going to wait a while before we let her have Bonesaw's powers back?'

'I was thinking more like D&amp;D style reincarnate complete with the ability to pick species and sex. That's less like her old powers and more like a druid or something. Skitter's mom, some of the old heroes. I mean if we did it right then we could bring them back as dragons or something fun. On, second thought, Riley might not be the best person for that power. She might bring them back as My Little Pony knockoffs.'

'I didn't give her that infection and may have given her a predilection to detest talking cartoon horses that are only up to people's knees and colored psychedelically.' Charles replied.

Mist shrugged, "I'll talk to Charles about it after I grab the pizza." He sent a thought back to Charles, 'We could still pull off Drow or dragons, right? Or even elves would work.' He headed up the stairs to wait for the pizzas and do a bit of people watching.

'I'd go with elves before dragons; dragons require lots of food and Earth-Bet doesn't have the benefits of worldwide shipping anymore thanks to Leviathan and the other Endbringers.' Charles replied.

'Silver dragons seem to function just fine on human levels of food with the occasional bender but I guess elves works better. It should work as long as I build in a requirement that they be willing.'

'If you can sure… but what are we supposed to do with Bonesaw's powers afterwards? Well, then again; her resurrection abilities only seem to work on fresh corpses.' Charles shrugged.

'Exactly, this would be something else and nothing says we have to give it to her.'

'Playing god isn't any worse than the other stuff we're doing… then again we're playing giant alien not god. Since the giant alien can already give resurrection.' Charles sent another mental shrug.

'It seems a shame not to tweak things while we're here. Honestly, I can't see us staying that long. Make a bomb, teleport it into Scion's pocket space then laugh, beyond that and playing with terraforming we could probably just jump ship to some other world if we wanted.'

'Eh, I suppose… but there could be COOL alien life out there and now I have ideas to build spaceships.' Charles replied.

'Maybe I need to look at building a Wraith ship. I mean I could make it really cool.'

'Why would we want to make a space vampire ship?'

'A telepathic ship sounds sort of fun then again I'm not really sure where I'd start without a sample.'

Charles sent a mental shrug. 'Perhaps it's for the best.'

'Why?'

'Because I'm not really comfortable with me being Professor X, why would I want an alien ship that can do that type of thing?'

'Nah, much more limited than that, making something that can rewrite brains sounds like a horrible fucking idea. That reminds me, we might want to look into making a better version of Victor's power to give out, one that merely copies abilities.' Mist grinned as he pictured being able to pick up wholes languages and skill sets with only a couple of hours of work.

'Victor? Not sure who you're talking about. Is he the guy with the skill stealing thing?'

'Yeah, that one.' Mist paid the delivery boy when he showed up then headed back down with the food and soda.

Riley grinned as she saw Mist walk back in, "Food!"

Mist chuckled as he set the pizza on the table and opened it. "Yep. Let's see, would you like a superpower that makes school ridiculously easy?"

Riley snorted, "It's already crazy easy but sure."

Mist conjured an upgrade orb and charged it with a similar power to Olivers which should let Riley master any skill she was working on insanely easy then he mixed it with another power that should let her copy skills from other people without harming the other person's skills unlike Victor who was the inspiration for the power. He tossed her the large glowing orb. "Here you go."

Charles wandered into the room and tossed Mist a compact black disc. "One camera; wasn't hard… The Gecko Tape was a little harder, but doable. I have the camera set up so it can link into a network and record surveillance."

"Gecko Tape?"

Grinning Charles reached into a pocket and pulled out a roll of black tape. "Single sided Gecko tape - it'll hold 800 pounds per 1"x1" square. Double sided is actually the best for hooking two items together, but … *shrug* I figure it'll do. It was too much hassle to make a double sided roll before the pizza got here."

"Ah, I see, Tinker hax."

"The camera already has double sided on it, just peel the tab and stick it anywhere. The camera is light so technically someone could weigh a lot and just hang onto it but that's not my problem."

Mist looked at Riley, "Do you want to learn how to phase into other dimensions?"

Riley asked, "Is that a trick question?"

"Nope."

"In that case, yes!"

"No sneaking into boys locker rooms with this." Mist conjured an upgrade orb and hit Riley with it. "There. You should phase out just a little then place the camera and we'll see if it works."

Riley looked at Mist and held out her hand. "Okay."

Mist handed her the black disc. "Have fun."

"We made a better Imp…" Charles grinned. "Speaking of, we should really check on Skitter and see what they are up to and then see what's going on with Grue's family."

"Yeah, I want to make sure that both of those trouble makers are staying out of trouble. Imp loves trouble and Skitter has a knack for finding it." Mist blinked as he realized what he'd just done, "Did I just give a teenage girl the ability to sneak out of the house and past most any security system in the world?"

"Yup." Charles drawled, deliberately popping the P.

"Shit…" Mist rubbed his face.

~#~Scene Break~#~

Mist frowned as he considered a resurrection power as they walked to Taylor's house, "Okay, so I've got five orbs left and I was giving some more thoughts to the resurrection power. That's probably going to require a couple of upgrade orbs if we want to have different options. Is it worth creating the power and who do we give it to?"

Charles raised an eyebrow dubiously. "Well, it could be worth creating; it definitely wouldn't hurt… But the consequences could be severe. We are talking about a power that works longer than just a few days like Bonesaw right?"

"Yeah, reincarnate. You could bring people back as elves or dragons, I'm not sure how many upgrade orbs that would take though. Still, the power to bring people back would be nice."

Charles rubbed the bridge of his nose firmly. "Yeah, but what are the criteria for who to use it on?"

"Whoever you want. Skitter's mom, heroes that are actually heroes, people that deserve a second chance. That's up to whoever I give the power to I guess. On the other side, I can see people wanting various figures in history brought back to life..." Mist shook his head and focused on his power and tried to come up with something. "Nothing seems to be working, maybe there isn't an afterlife here. Okay, fine… I can pull a Star Trek version of reincarnate."

"Which would be?"

"Basically making a power that makes a copy of them from the past or something that pulls memories from the past and recreates a person's mind in a crystal. That way I could make them a body and then have you download their minds. It's more complicated but it might be our only option when there isn't an afterlife to steal souls out of."

"It could work, or you could try tapping into the universal gestalt to find their minds and such and then go with the recreated body…" Charles replied thoughtfully.

Mist frowned slightly as he looked for ways to make the reincarnate power work. "Okay, let's see… the ability to pull a mind from the universal gestalt… not sure how I'd make that work." He tried a couple of various ideas then created an orb. "Got something that works. It collects their consciousness at or near the time of death through time and traps it into a crystal. From there we can build them bodies. It's not as easy as waving your fingers and having them just appear in a new body but it should work." He tossed the orb to Charles, "Have fun playing a god."

Charles shuddered and gave a dark look Mist's way. "Okay, so I have two methods of bringing the dead back to life. Joy."

Mist shrugged as they walked up the steps to Taylor's house. "It's probably better that you have the ability than some religious nutcase that would use it to prove that he's a prophet or something."

"Point." Charles agreed.

"We could always give you the ability to turn water into wine." Mist smirked as he knocked on the Hebert's door.

Taylor opened the door with a smile, "Hey guys. Come in."

Mist stepped into the Hebert house. "Are you enjoying your new powers?"

Taylor grinned, "Flying is a lot fun. Not having to worry if I fall is even better. Dad's already cleaned up a decent amount of the boat graveyard. How have you been?"

Charles headed inside as well, tousling Taylor's hair as he wandered in and making it stand straight up from her skull and closing the door behind them.

Mist shrugged, "Can't complain. I've already upgraded most of the heroes in town and we've got some solid theories on how we're going to deal with the Endbringers; so I call that a win."

Taylor raised an eyebrow, "You have a way to deal with the Endbringers?"

Mist shrugged, "I'm fairly sure that we can deal with Leviathan and Behemoth by teleporting them into space. I'm not sure if Simurgh can fly through deep space or not but I'm betting that she can which makes her a bit more of a problem."

Taylor asked curiously, "So… you weren't involved with the defeat of the Slaughterhouse Nine?"

"That reminds me; Piggot still owes us money." Charles mused thoughtfully.

Mist shrugged, "It's only been a day, we'll give her a couple more days to get everything sorted then we'll complain."

Taylor shook her head, "So what brings you by?"

Mist shrugged, "I've got 4 more upgrade orbs today and I was thinking that you could use some more powers."

Taylor grinned, "I wouldn't complain."

"What were you thinking?"

"Riley would love it if I gave Taylor the Maddy package." Charles replied.

"Maddy package?" Taylor asked curiously.

"You can shape change into a puppy or dog and you get a brute rating, regeneration and speed boosts out of it not to mention heightened senses." Mist replied.

"That sounds useful."

Charles grinned and poked her between the eyes then channeled the puppy package into her, the now standard defensive mental stuff, the ability to use hard light holograms, the ability to line of sight teleport and a tinker ability with every specialization he'd encountered thus far except Bonesaw's. "There you go… lots of new abilities."

Taylor blinked, "I know how to build a giant spider mech now… okay that's nearly useless unless I was going to be a villain. Thankfully there are plenty of other ideas as well."

Mist laughed, "Anything else that you can think of?"

"More Tinker abilities?"

Mist frowned slightly, "Leet is running around with every possible Tinker specialization, he's just got a shard that hates him and sabotages things… We can probably get him to swap from a villain to a hero if we fix his shard."

"Some of his videos are amusing." Taylor replied.

"It gets him off the street and it gives Charles a full tech tree to play around with."

Taylor asked, "How can I help?"

Charles chuckled and grinned at her. "Well, it wouldn't hurt to know where the two of those guys are."

"If you want to come with us, you can narrow down the area we've got to search."

"I actually already know where they are. I noticed them at a warehouse this morning when I was going jogging. Either that or someone else is playing with a giant robot.."

Mist considered his options, "Directions?"

"I'll show you."

Mist looked over at Charles, "Costumes?"

"Taylor can do costumes…" Charles grinned.

"Wait, I can do costumes? What all did you give me?" Taylor looked at Charles curiously.

"Every tinker package I have; including Panacea's… The puppy package… which gave you brute and speedster ratings of around 5 plus regeneration and the ability to transform into a wolf or werewolf… Hard light holograms… Standard mental defenses and the ability to line of sight teleport." Charles said thoughtfully.

Taylor grinned, "In other words, with my bugs…"

"You can teleport around half the city with a decent level of precision." Mist was fairly sure that various villains in alternate realities would cry themselves to sleep if their Skitter had the same powers.

"In that case, let's test my hard light abilities out." She concentrated and everyone's skin and even clothing grew black chitinous armor plating that was both horrifying and quite effective for hiding what the group looked like. "That should do it."

Mist shuddered as he looked at the creepy looking costumes, "Yeah… there is something not right in your head Skitter."

Skitter pouted behind her illusion, "What, I thought we were shooting for scary."

Charles looked himself over. "Okay, I'm scary as hell… A six foot mountain of muscle in thick chitin armor… Now I know what my Skyrim character looked like in person."

"Exactly." Mist grinned, "You might as well teleport us into his lab."

Taylor looked at Charles, "Ready?"

"Sure."

Taylor reached out with her new power and teleported the group into Leet and Uber's base.

Mist grinned as he lifted Leet and Uber up with psychokinesis, "Part 1 complete." He reached out and pulled Leet's power out of his body and let the shard flee. He tossed the Tinker power to Charles, "There, that should be nearly everything the entities knew about Tinkertech."

Leet shouted, "Who the hell are you?"

Taylor used her bugs to talk, "We are legion!"

Uber sighed, "I knew I shouldn't have eaten that ham sandwich... "

Leet begged, "Please tell me that this is a nightmare."

Mist snorted, "I'm afraid not. We've borrowed your ability, if you want it back we're going to require that you stop being a villain."

Leet scowled, "Tinkering takes money, our shows take money."

"Get sponsoring and do things that don't require you to break the laws."

"I can only make something once before it starts failing."

Mist shrugged, "Yeah, that was because your shard hated you. We already fixed that."

Leet blinked a couple of times, "What the fuck? Really?"

"We are legion." Mist used his psychokinesis to make a thunderclap sound in the distance.

Charles reached over and swatted Mist on the back of his helmeted head. "Once was enough."

Uber looked at Charles, "I know right... " He trailed off when Leet glared at him causing Charles to snicker.

Uber glanced at his feet that were several feet off the ground and asked, "Are you the guys that hit Hookwolf?"

"Maaaybe." Charles drawled.

"Please don't kill us…"

Mist snorted, "We haven't killed anyone… unless you include the Slaughterhouse 9 but they were really bad people."

"Oh god they're going to kill us." Leet whined.

"If you want to be a hero, we'll give you some Tinker abilities and you're free to go. If you don't want to be a hero then we're going to toss you to the PRT without powers."

Uber gulped, "Shit… he's not lying."

Leet asked, "What type of Tinker abilities and hero or just villain? I mean we could always come to some type of deal right?"

Mist raised an eyebrow behind Taylor's illusion, "What type of deal are you thinking about?"

"Television…"

Charles chuckled and looked between Taylor and Mist. "What do you think? Uber and Leet doing TV wouldn't be too bad and Earth Bet doesn't have a hell of a lot of entertainment options."

Taylor said, "It would be better than daytime soaps."

"Not much but some." Mist replied with a smirk.

Leet winced, "That's just cold."

"It works, go ahead and give him Squealer's ability and Kid Win's Tinker collection. It's more stable than the Tinker abilities he had and he should be able to use them to create plenty of entertainment. You might as well give Uber the same abilities so that he can help. Actually, I've got a better idea." Mist reached out and stole Uber's power and sent the shard on its way. He tossed the shard to Charles. "Give them both Uber's power and the Tinker ability. That way they can both have any game skills they need."

Charles shrugged and floated up into the air and reached over and poked them both in the forehead and gave them the requested abilities.

Mist shrugged, "Just remember that we're watching you. We if we have to come back, I'm going to be unhappy. Let's head back."

Taylor reached out with her powers and teleported Charles, Mist and herself back to her house. "That was fun."

Mist laughed as Taylor dropped the hard light illusion, "It also gave us a very nice Tinker power that should be fantastic without his shard trying to sabotage us." He looked at Charles, "I don't suppose you can give me that ability, can you?"

"Nope, you said I couldn't give you abilities earlier remember?"

"I said I can't give myself abilities… either way, we should probably check that for sure."

Charles chuckled and waggled his eyebrows at Taylor. "Think I should?"

Taylor laughed, "I don't know, he's sort of overpowered already but you might as well try."

Playing up his thinking posture he sat in the air in the classic Thinker position and started moving his hands as if weighing something.

"Oh, come on I gave you the ability to reincarnate people and this is what I get?"

Taylor blinked in surprise, "Wait! What?!"

"Oh, right… that was supposed to be a surprise."

"It's a damn surprise alright, how does this work?" Taylor asked urgently.

Mist said, "Basically he pulls a person's consciousness through time from when they died or shortly before that and places it in crystal so that we can create a body for them and bring them back."

Taylor blinked owlishly and then sat down in thin air, her rump nearly caroming off the dinner table before Charles caught her with telekinesis. "Yes; I'm willing to bring your mom back Taylor."

Involuntarily Taylor started sniffling as tears trickled down her face and dove toward him.

Charles caught her with a small oof and pulled her into his lap to cuddle. "Okay, I take it that's a yes?"

She managed to choke out, "Yes."

Mist looked at Charles, "We should probably ask Danny about this…"

"It's easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission." Charles shrugged and reached for Taylor's mom's consciousness against the flow of time.

Mist asked, "I guess I can alter in the genetics later. Do you have a picture I can look at?"

Taylor pointed to a picture of her mom on the desk. "There."

Charles chuckled. "We have two choices; we can dig up her body but there's no guarantee there would still be intact cells to make into a body for her… Or I can give her my shapeshifting ability I've been working on; it's supposed to match Mystique's but I dunno if it will or not."

Mist said, "It's fine, I can get close by using Taylor's blood… I think."

"Wait… we're over thinking this. Huh… wait a damn minute…" Charles sniffed around and then shifted into wolf form in which Taylor found herself mounted on his back instead of in his lap and he headed through the house sniffing around.

Taylor held on tight as the huge wolf ran around her house sniffing at things then up the stairs to her father's closet where he nosed around a box with some of her mother's old things in it including a hairbrush.

Charles shifted back to human form and picked it up, standing with Taylor in piggyback. "I guess all that's left is to check these for a follicle. Without one it can't be done; with one we've got the DNA sample we need and I can make her a body using Leet's tinker stuff easily enough."

Taylor crossed her fingers as she waited nervously as Charles searched through the hairs. After thirty seconds of carefully searching Charles found a follicle on one of the long strands of her mother's hair.

"Okay… Found one…" Charles turned to Taylor and grinned. "Okay short stack, is there anything you want changed before you have two parents you have to argue with about body modifications? Height, breasts, butt, hair color maybe?" He asked to lighten the distinctly heavy mood in the room.

"My hair is fine. I don't mind being tall… my breasts… they could be bigger."

Charles chuckled. "Of course they could, but how big do you want them to finish out?"

"C? If I end up close to six feet tall then that should look okay, right?"

"Sure; a medium to largish C would look good on a woman that tall… Want your rump to match?" Charles asked as he wandered downstairs with the hair triumphantly.

Taylor shook her head, "It's fine… I'll grow into that. Mom did."

"Okay then." Charles channeled his powers into her tweaking her genetics so her breasts would grow enough to end as a proportionate C to match her frame. "There; now you'll never have to worry about being harassed for being tiny up top."

"Good." Taylor said as they went downstairs.

Charles came into the kitchen where Mist was waiting on them. "Well, I have one Taylor and one hair… to the lab?"

"I can just use my Shaper power to create the body here unless we want to visit the lab."

"Then Taylor had probably better find her mom some clothes… Unless she wants to hang out with Riley and Selena… They might object to us bringing people back to life and them not even being there." Charles replied.

"Oh… yeah that would be a bad idea."

Charles grabbed Mist and teleported the three of them into their first lair.


End file.
